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EGOISM:  A  STUDY  IN 

THE  SOCIAL  PREMISES 

OF  RELIGION 


BY. 


LOUIS  WALLIS 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 

1905 


Copyright,  1905 
By  Louis  Wallis 


Published,  December,  1905 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press 

Chicago.  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 

G.  H.  T. 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

This  essay  falls  naturally  into  three  parts,  tak- 
ing its  main  title  from  the  first. 

The  thesis  of  the  first  division  is  not  in  any 
sense  original,  although  the  treatment  possibly  has 
points  of  novelty.  The  idea  that  all  human 
activity  is  either  directly  or  indirectly  egoistic,  or 
selfish,  is  not  new.  We  lay  this  down  as  a  uni- 
versal fact  of  history  in  the  proposition :  "  Ego- 
ism is  the  only  '  force '  propelling  the  social 
machine." 

The  second  and  largest  part  of  the  essay  illus- 
trates this  proposition  from  a  quarter  which,  we 
maintain,  offers  the  most  dramatic  evidence  in  its 
favor  —  biblical  history.  We  hold  that  the  Bible, 
interpreted  from  the  standpoint  of  so-called  higher 
criticism,  brings  us  more  directly  and  vividly  into 
relation  with  the  fundamental  facts  of  personality 
(i.  e.,  the  struggle  of  the  ego  for  life)  than  any- 
thing else.  The  egoistic  proposition  is  within  the 
domain  of  sociology;  and  if  we  would  grasp  the 
significance  of  the  Bible,  we  must  approach  it,  first 
of  all,  as  a  social  phenomenon.  The  logical  ulti- 
mate of  higher  criticism  is,  that  the  total  body  of 
religious  conception  in  the  Bible  arose  out  of,  and 
in  dependence  upon,  the  so-called  secular  experi- 
ence of  Israel.  The  critical  movement  has  been 
approaching  this  position  for  some  time,  although 
deficient  sociological  insight  has  impeded  its 
progress.     There  is  nothing  anomalous  about  the 


vi  PREFACE 

sociological  deficiency  of  biblical  scholarship,  for 
the  biblical  higher  criticism  itself  is  but  a  part  of 
that  wider  historico-critical  movement  which  is  a 
necessary  antecedent  of  sociology.  The  order  is 
not :  sociology ;  then,  criticism.  It  is  the  reverse. 
The  critical  movement  at  large  clears  the  way  for 
true  historical  insight,  and  thus  (among  other 
factors)  helps  to  make  possible  a  science  of  soci- 
ology. There  is  then  a  halt  while  certain  men  are 
deployed  in  order  to  become  familiarized  with  the 
social  process  per  se.  Then  the  sociologists  return 
to  modify  the  critical  movement,  whereupon  the 
entire  intellectual  process  is  ready  to  advance 
another  stage. 

And  this  is  the  point  that  we  of  today  have 
reached.  The  higher  criticism  of  the  Bible  seems 
to  have  taught  us  all  it  can.  Of  late  years  there 
has  been  a  period  of  waiting,  with  no  apparent 
progress.  We  are  in  a  peculiar  situation.  Not 
only  has  the  older  view  of  the  Bible  lost  ground; 
but  the  new  view,  despite  the  exertions  of  its 
defenders,  does  not  associate  itself  with  a  quicken- 
ing of  the  popular  faith.  What  is  called  "  reverent 
modern  scholarship "  thinks  that  all  we  need  is 
to  recover  the  standpoint  of  ancient  creative 
prophecy,  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament  alike, 
and  then  apply  its  ethical  messages  to  the  present. 
But  the  church,  the  official  embodiment  of  religion, 
meets  progressive  loss  of  influence  and  enthu- 
siasm. Do  present  conditions  mean  that  there  is, 
then,  no  ground  for  enthusiasm,  and  no  object 
for  faith?  We  think  not.  The  critics  charge  the 
situation    to    the    conservatives;     while   the    con- 


PREFACE  vii 

servatives,  on  the  other  hand,  are  quite  sure  that 
the  critics  are  responsible  for  the  whole  business. 

It  is  certain  that  the  biblical  higher  criticism 
has  come  to  stay.  It  will  be  a  presupposition  of 
future  thinking.  As  Dr.  C.  F.  Kent,  Yale  pro- 
fessor of  biblical  literature,  well  says :  "  The 
conclusions  [of  criticism]  are  not  those  of  an 
individual,  nor  of  a  school,  nor  even  of  one 
generation  of  scholars.  They  are  based  not  on 
theories,  nor  on  the  often  fanciful  traditions  of 
Jewish  rabbis  or  early  church  fathers,  but  on  the 
solid  basis  of  facts  presented  by  the  Old  Testa- 
ment books  themselves.  They  are  in  turn  sub- 
stantiated by  the  independent  testimony  of  history 
and  compara':ive  literature.  It  is  safe,  therefore, 
to  regard  them  as  no  longer  on  trial  or  under 
suspicion,  but  rather  as  the  foundations  —  as  sure 
as  enlightened  human  insight  and  scientific  method 
can  discover  —  upon  which  Old  Testament  inter- 
pretation and  doctrine  are  in  the  future  to  rest."  ^ 

But,  in  the  face  of  the  triumph  of  criticism, 
the  strictures  upon  the  reigning  school  on  behalf 
of  conservatism  by  Professor  James  Robertson,  of 
the  University  of  Glasgow,  remain  profoundly 
true.  "  The  modern  theory,"  says  this  writer,  "  is 
strong   in   minute  analysis,   but  weak   in   face  of 

great    controlling     facts Nabiism,     or    the 

prophetic  activity,  even  Yahwism  itself,  are  bor- 
rowed from  the  Canaanites  or  Kenites ;  and  when 
it  is  asked  why  the  Canaanites  or  Kenites  did  not 
reach  the  same  truth  that  Israel  attained,  we  get 
no   answer.     And  when   we  ask   what   then    had 

^  Kent,  The  Beginnings  of  Hebrew  History  (New 
York,  1904),  p.  29. 


viii  PREFACE 

Israel  to  distinguish  it,  the  feeble  answer  is 
returned  that  when  Israel  (for  no  reason  stated) 
assumed  Yahweh  as  their  national  deity,  they  also 
resolved  and  were  told  that  He  (for  no  rea- 
son assigned)  was  to  be  their  only  God.  And 
when  the  undoubtedly  pure  and  high  conceptions 
entertained  by  the  prophets  are  pointed  out,  and 
an  explanation  demanded  of  their  origin,  we  are 
told  that  a  '  conception '  was  '  absorbed '  by  the 
prophets  and  came  out  in  this  purified  form. 
....  The  theory  itself  is  clear  and  thorough 
enough,  and  of  course  it  hangs  together  as  a 
whole.  But  it  does  not  hold  the  parts  together, 
because  it  does  not  supply  the  proper  nexus  that 
unites  them  in  an  orderly  historical  development. 
There  must  be  a  bond  of  a  more  vital  fibre,  a 
force  more  deeply  inherent,  which  the  modern 
theory  has  not  penetrated  to  nor  unfolded,  to 
account  for  a  religious  and  spiritual  movement 
which,  looking  to  the  broad  field  on  which  it  is 
displayed  and  the  diversified  circumstances  under 
which  it  took  place,  is  nothing  short  of  majestic. 
The  self-styled  '  higher '  criticism  is  indeed  not 
high  enough,  or,  we  should  perhaps  more  appro- 
priately say,  not  deep  enough  for  the  problem 
before  it."  ^  These  points  are  well  taken,  and 
have  not  been  answered.  And  because  modem 
criticism  has  not  met  them,  Robertson  denies  its 
validity.  Although  a  trifle  shaky  from  the  stand- 
point of  ultra-conservatism,  treating  the  first 
eleven  chapters  of  Genesis  a  little  more  freely  than 
was   allowed   a   century   ago,   he   becomes   safely 

^  Robertson,   The  Early  Religion  of  Israel   (New 
York),  Vol.  II,  pp.  230  f. 


PREFACE  ix 

orthodox  with  Abraham,  and  concludes  that 
"  from  the  12th  chapter  of  Genesis  onwards,  we 
have  a  credible  and  trustworthy  account."  ^ 

To  the  same  effect  is  the  criticism  of  Henry- 
Preserved  Smith's  recent  work  on  Old  Testament 
history,*  by  E.  E.  Nourse,  of  the  Department  of 
Biblical  History  and  Theology  in  Hartford  Theo- 
logical Seminary.  While  making  generous 
acknowledgment  of  the  scholarly  quality  of  the 
book,  the  author's  full  acquaintance  with  the  vast 
and  varied  literature  of  the  subject,  and  his  mas- 
tery of  the  critical  problems  involved  in  the 
sources,  the  reviewer  well  says  of  this  history : 
"  Its  fatal  defect  is  that  it  leaves  Israel's  religion 
wholly  unaccounted  for.  On  the  basis  of  Dr. 
Smith's  presentation,  Amos  and  Hosea  and  Isaiah 
are  enigmas.  Israel's  religious  conceptions,  up  to 
the  age  of  Amos,  having  been  but  little  removed 
from  ordinary  Semitic  polytheism,  the  subsequent 
remarkable  teachings  of  prophecy  demand  a  far 
more  complete  explanation  than  they  get  at  Dr. 
Smith's  hand." ' 

Not  until  the  higher  criticism  is  modified  by 
sociology  shall  we  reach  finally  valid  results  in 
biblical  interpretation.  This  book  attempts  to 
exhibit  our  sacred  literature  as  an  involution  of 
the  social  process.  The  writer  has  already  treated 
the  same  subject,  from  a  different  standpoint,  in 
the  course  of  his  "  Examination  of  Society,"  part 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  247  f. 

*H.  P.  Smith,  Old  Testament  History  (New 
York,  1903)- 

^Hartford  Seminary  Record,  February,  1904,  p. 
140. 


X  PREFACE 

of  which  book  was  published  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Sociology  (May,  1902).  The  present 
essay  is  not  a  rewriting  of  the  section  of  the 
earlier  work  dealing  with  Israel.  It  is  a  fresh 
study  of  the  field,  and  stands  independent  of  the 
other  book.*' 

The  third  and  final  part  of  this  essay  attempts 
to  show  its  practical  bearing  on  the  present  social 
problem. 

It  is  both  a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  acknowledge 
the  kindness  of  Dr.  Albion  W.  Small,  Head  of 
the  Department  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of 
Chicago,  who  has  opened  the  American  Journal  of 
Sociology  to  the  writer,  and  has  also  assisted  him 
to  find  publication  at  the  University  Press.  While 
Dr.  Small  agrees  with  the  general  position  here 
taken  in  reference  to  historical  criticism  and 
sociology,  the  writer  has  no  desire  even  to  appear 
to  commit  him  to  any  of  the  special  ideas  in 
exegesis  and  social  technology  held  by  the  author 
of  this  treatise. 

The  larger  part  of  the  book  has  been  read  in 
manuscript  by  Dr.  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  of  the  Semitic 
Department  in  the  University  of  Chicago;    and 

•*  The  following  may  be  quoted  from  the  late  Dr. 
A.  B.  Bruce,  of  the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow, 
as  a  straw  indicating  the  present  direction  of  the 
wind  :  "  The  creation  of  Israel,  like  the  creation  of 
the  world,  may  have  been  a  much  more  complicated 
process  than  it  appears  in  the  sacred  page ;  and 
the  secular  history  of  the  process  [italics  mine],  if  it 
could  be  written,  might  assume  a  very  different  ap- 
pearance in  many  respects  to  the  biblical,  just  as  the 
scientific  history  of  the  physical  creation  differs 
widely  from  that  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis."—  Bruce,  Apologetics  (New  York,  1899),  p.  197. 


PREFACE  xi 

the  chapter  entitled  "  The  Revolution  (con- 
tinued)" has  been  added  in  response  to  his  much- 
appreciated  criticism.  A  number  of  important 
changes  in  details  of  expression  have  been  kindly 
suggested  by  Dr.  A.  E.  Davies,  of  the  Department 
of  Philosophy  in  the  Ohio  State  University.  My 
attention  was  first  called  to  egoism  as  a  universal 
informing  principle  of  human  action  by  my  friend, 
Herbert  B.  Harrop. 

The  new  treatise,  General  Sociology,  by  Dr. 
Small,  was  published  too  late  for  reference  in  our 
text.  It  has  large  bearing  on  all  the  propositions 
advanced  in  this  book;  and  will  at  once  take  its 
place  as  a  standard  sociological  work. 

L.  W. 

Columbus,  Ohio, 
October  i,   1905. 


CONTENTS 


I.  Introduction 

II.  The  Egoistic  Proposition 

III.  The  Bible  and  Egoism     . 

IV.  Israel's  Religion  before  the  Exile 
V.  The  Covenant  with  Yahweh 

VI.  The  Invasion  of  Canaan 

VII.  Yahweh  and  the  Baalim 

VIII.  Union  and  Monarchy  .     . 

IX.  The  Increase  of  Yahweh 

X.  The  Decline  of  Israel    . 

XL  The  Revolution   .... 

XII.  The  Revolution  (continued) 

XIII.  The  Writing  Prophets     . 

XIV.  The  Exile  and  After  .     . 
XV.  Jesus  of  Nazareth   .     .     . 

XVI.  The  Practical  Issue    .     . 


PAGE 

I 

3 
13 
16 
22 
29 
32 
37 
44 
49 
56 

71 

88 

100 

103 

112 


"  To  do  the  best  for  others  is  finally  to  do  the 
best  for  ourselves  ;  but  it  will  not  do  to  have  our 
eyes  fixed  on  that  issue."  —  Ruskin,  The  Crozvn  of 
Wild  Olive. 

"  Under  social  conditions,  personal  welfare  de- 
pends on  due  regard  for  the  welfare  of  others 

Each  higher  species,  using  its  improved  faculties 
primarily  for  egoistic  benefit,  has  spread  in  propor- 
tion as  it  has  used  them  for  altruistic  benefit."  — 
Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics. 

"  Those  communities  which  contain  the  greatest 
number  of  most  sympathetic  members  flourish  best." 
—  Darwin,  The  Descent  of  Man. 

"  The  egoistic  basis  of  altruism  is  the  great  moral 
paradox."  —  Ward,  Dynamic  Sociology. 

"  The  thoughts  and  feelings  and  purposes  that 
make  possible  the  best  life  of  mankind  are  rarely 
traced  to  their  true  source.  Genuine  egoism  is  per- 
fected through  genuine  altruism.  Selfhood  comes 
to  its  best  in  love."  —  Gordon,  Ultimate  Concep- 
tions of  Faith. 

"  Normal  egoism  is  not  abstract  individual  self- 
assertion,  but  the  self-realizing  pulse  of  a  con- 
sciousness that  includes  its  other  ;  nor  on  the  other 
hand  is  altruism  pure  abstract  otherness,  but  a  pulse 
of  other-realization  in  which  self  is  included. 
The  form  of  egoism  which  we  call  selfishness  or 
self-seeking  arises  only  when  some  subject-self 
attempts  to  ignore  the  objective  side  of  the  dialectic 
in  its  feelings  or  life-aims."  —  Ormond,  Foundations 
of  Knozvledge. 

"  This  problem  [of  ethics]  is  the  realization  of 
the  Self,  in  social  relations  with  other  selves,  and 
in  accordance  with  a  consciously  accepted  ideal."  — 
Ladd,  Philosophy  of  Conduct. 


I 

INTRODUCTION 

This  essay  attempts  to  show  that  ex- 
ploration of  the  field  of  sociology  dis- 
covers the  terms  of  the  religious  and 
philosophical  problem.  In  other  words,  it 
claims  that  philosophy  and  religion  meet 
on  sociological  ground.  It  is  a  study 
along  lines  familiar  and  out  of  the  com- 
mon. In  the  first  place,  it  points  out,  as 
previous  writers  have  shown,  that  all  hu- 
man conduct  is  rooted  in  egoism ;  and  that 
altruism  is  a  disguis^  or  indirect  form  of 
egoism.  From  this  it  goes  on  to  show 
that  the  sacred  literature  of  our  western 
society  has  obtained  its  pre-eminence  be- 
cause it  gives  the  best  historical  expression 
to  egoism  in  general.  In  connection  with 
the  last  proposition,  it  shows  (or  tries  to 
show)  that  the  religious  life  and  doctrine 
of  the  Bible  developed  in  a  purely  "  na- 
tural "  way,  in  strict  relation  to  the  soci- 
ology of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  — 


2  EGOISM 

i.  e.,  without  the  aid  of  an  objective  reve- 
lation in  the  old,  mythologic  sense. 

In  an  earlier  work  the  writer  undertook 
an  inquiry  into  the  structural  and  func- 
tional aspects  of  society.^  That  work 
approached  the  subject  from  the  stand- 
point of  conceptions  which  threw  men  into 
the  background  of  institutions.  The  pres- 
ent essay  attempts  the  reverse.  The  indi- 
vidual is  put  into  the  foreground ;  and  the 
forces  are  examined  which  move  below 
the  social  surface.  The  study  of  institu- 
tions, as  such,  exhausts  only  one  phase  of 
sociology.  Analysis  of  society  carries  us 
away  from  the  individual  into  a  great  in- 
stitutional plexus  where  people  seem  but 
the  insignificant  pawns  of  some  vast,  im- 
personal game;  but  every  analysis  of 
structure  throws  us  back  on  the  personal 
units  composing  the  aggregate.  The  goal 
of  effort  is  continually  turning  out  to  be 
the  point  of  departure.  We  begin,  and 
we  end  —  with  the  individual. 

^  An  Examination  of  Society  (1903),  preceded 
by  "  The  Capitalization  of  Social  Development " 
in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  May,   1902. 


II 

THE  EGOISTIC  PROPOSITION 

We  lay  down  at  the  outset  a  proposition 
variously  phrased  as  follows :  That  form 
of  conduct  which  is  commonly  termed 
*' egoism,"  or  ''selfishness,"  is  accurately 
described  as  direct  selfishness  or  egoism; 
while  that  which,  in  contrast,  is  commonly 
called  ''unselfishness,"  or  "altruism,"  is 
accurately  described  as  indirect  egoism  or 
selfishness.  According  to  this  usage,  ego- 
ism is  generic  in  society,  appearing  con- 
cretely in  one  or  the  other  form,  imme- 
diate or  mediate.  Egoism  is  the  only 
"  force "  propelling  the  social  machine. 
Every  human  being,  from  birth  to  death, 
is  animated  by  one  or  both  forms  of  the 
fundamental  egoistic  impulse,  and  by  this 
alone.  It  is  impossible  that  conduct  be 
anything  else  than  egoistic.  Conventional 
morality  is  right  in  affirming  a  contrast 
here;  but  it  mistakes  the  nature  of  the 
contrast. 


4  EGOISM 

If  the  study  of  conduct  is  directed 
merely  upon  the  motives  acknowledged 
by  the  actor,  then  it  would  be  difficult  to 
establish  the  proposition  laid  down  above. 
But  it  needs  to  be  emphasized  at  the  out- 
set that  no  thoroughgoing  study  of  con- 
duct can  proceed  upon  a  mere  probing 
of  the  individual's  mental  states. 

Not  only  is  egoism  the  fundamental 
human  trait;  but  it  is  most  commonly 
seen  in  the  direct  form.  At  the  beginning 
of  our  existence  we  are  all  direct,  or  im- 
mediate, egoists.  All  the  acts  of  a  child 
of  six  months  are  on  the  lines  of  a  direct 
outreach  for  satisfaction,  regardless  of 
the  good  of  others.  This  being  so,  it  fol- 
lows that  altruism  is  a  later  fact  in  life. 

We  have  now  to  note  how  altruism 
(i.  e.,  indirect  egoism)  becomes  a  fact  in 
a  world  primarily  ruled  by  egoism  in  the 
direct  form.  Although  the  first  impulse 
of  all  living  beings,  animal  and  human,  is 
toward  action  for  the  pleasure  or  good  of 
self,  without  reference  to  the  pleasure  or 
good  of  others,  yet  there  is  ever  present  a 
force  which,  all-pervading  and  irresistible 


THE  EGOISTIC  PROPOSITION  5 

as  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  con- 
strains each  self  to  act  for  the  good  of 
others.  This  force  is  the  pressure  of  the 
others  themselves.  We  need  but  to  look 
at  the  laws  and  customs  of  all  races  at  all 
periods  in  order  to  realize  how  powerfully 
the  self  has  been  coerced  by  the  others.  It 
is  a  mere  plain  fact  that  a  large  part  of  the 
world's  law,  as  well  as  of  that  vast  body 
of  custom  having  the  force  of  law,  is  con- 
cerned with  making  the  self  either  do 
things  for  the  benefit  of  others,  or  abstain 
from  acts  hurtful  to  others. 

We  see,  then,  that  if  the  world  is  full 
of  selves,  it  is  also  full  of  others.  We  need 
to  go  outside  the  ego  for  the  explanation 
of  a  large  part  of  his  conduct.  Every  ego 
has  a  double  character :  from  his  own  im- 
mediate standpoint,  he  is  merely  self ;  but 
from  the  standpoint  of  his  fellows,  he  is 
other. 

Here  we  have  the  conditions  of  an  un- 
remitting struggle.  Each  ego,  tending  to 
pursue  his  own,  direct  interest,  regardless 
of  others,  demands  that  the  others  turn 
aside  from  a  similar  course,  and  have  re- 


6  EGOISM 

gard  for  him;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
others,  Hkewise  engrossed  in  their  own 
ends,  call  upon  him  loudly  to  turn  aside 
and  have  regard  for  them.  Society  is 
composed  of  selves  who  are  quick  to  de- 
mand altruism,  but  slow  to  be  altruistic. 

Every  phase  of  experience  illustrates 
the  tension  between  selves.  The  univer- 
sal, and  most  popular,  terms  connected 
therewith  are  "good"  and  ''bad."  We 
call  those  people  good  who  do  as  we  de- 
sire ;  and  those  who  disregard  our  wishes, 
and  work  against  our  interests,  we  call 
bad.  We  are  not  asking  just  here  whether 
these  terms  are  correctly  applied ;  we  are 
not  trying  to  determine  whether  they  are 
always  used  wisely  and  truly.  We  are 
simply  remarking  that,  in  the  world-wide 
tension  between  self  and  other,  the  words 
"good"  and  "bad,"  "right"  and 
"wrong,"  etc.,  are  actually  applied  to  the 
matters  at  issue.^ 

We  have  observed  that  goodness  is 
primarily  objective.     It  is  called  out,  in 

^  We  frequently  overlook  the  fact  that  these 
terms,  instead  of  solving  social  problems,  merely 
raise  new  problems. 


THE  EGOISTIC  PROPOSITION  7 

the  first  instance,  by  forces  external  to 
the  self  —  namely,  by  the  pressure  of  the 
others.  But  altruism,  thus  originating, 
develops  at  length,  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory, into  an  element  of  character  whose 
impulses  are  obeyed  unreflectively  by  not 
a  few.  These  people  are  good  to  others 
without  pausing  to  consider  the  signifi- 
cance of  their  own  conduct.  They  are,  as 
we  say,  "good-hearted,"  or  "naturally 
good."  They  practice  goodness  "  for  its 
own  sake,"  without  reference  to  the  final 
ends  involved.  Their  inner  nature  —  their 
heart  —  becomes  good.  Instead  of  re- 
sponding to  the  pressure  from  without, 
they  act  according  to  a  pressure  from 
within.  Goodness,  primarily  objective, 
becomes  subjective. 

Altruism,  colored  by  emotion,  is  termed 
"love."  It  is  the  overlaying  of  emotion 
upon  altruism  that  results  in  love.  We 
can  be  altruistic  without  an  accompanying 
emotional  reaction;  but  if  emotion  be- 
comes a  factor  in  altruism,  then  we  are  in 
love. 

We  have  already  observed  that  altru- 


8  EGOISM 

ism,  although  of  beneficent  intention,  is 
not  always  wise  and  good.  In  the  same 
way,  love,  the  ultimate  form  of  altruism, 
is  not  necessarily  wise  in  all  its  inspira- 
tions. The  religious  teacher  is  correct  in 
declaring  love  to  be  a  desirable  thing;  but 
he  is  mistaken  if  he  identify  it  with  a  con- 
crete social  program.  Love  is  the  form 
in  which  altruism  advances  most  effi- 
ciently to  its  end  —  the  balancing  of  the 
tension  between  selves  in  that  which  we 
call  justice.  Of  course,  we  may  have  jus- 
tice, partial  or  complete,  without  love ;  but 
love  sharpens  perceptions  of  the  rights  of 
others. 

The  egoistic  nature  of  altruism  is  per- 
ceived gradually.  Long  after  the  general 
egoistic  proposition  has  been  accepted, 
there  is  difficulty  with  special  points ;  but 
the  whole  situation  at  last  becomes  clear. 

The  significance  of  altruism  as  making 
for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  selves  in  a  given  aggregate  has 
been  treated  by  modern  writers.^  Darwin 
emphasized  it  as  a  great  fact  among  ani- 

*  See  quotations  above. 


THE  EGOISTIC  PROPOSITION  9 

mals  and  men.^  Those  groups  in  which 
there  is  the  most  of  sympathy  and  mutual 
aid  are  better  fitted  to  survive  in  the 
struggle  for  life  than  those  in  which  there 
is  less  altruistic  co-operation.^  Herein 
lies  the  only  justification  of  altruism. 
Other  things  being  equal  —  i.  e.,  if  altru- 
ism is  not  carried  to  absurdity  —  the  self 
has  more  chances  in  an  altruistic  society 
than  in  a  community  where  the  direct 
form  of  egoism  prevails. 

If  you  are  glad  to  receive  the  benefits 
of  an  altruistic  society  (and  who  is 
not?),  you  must  show  a  reciprocal  altru- 
ism yourself  —  if  need  be,  even  to  the 
point  of  absolute  sacrifice  of  your  physical 
life.  Nothing  less  than  this  extreme  is 
logical.  Examples  of  absolute  physical 
self-sacrifice  are  cited  in  disproof  of  the 
view  that  all  conduct  is  rooted  in  egoism. 
But  there  is  no  great  difficulty  about  this 
point.  If  the  complete  physical  sacrifice 
of  one  or  more  lives  is  necessary  to  social 
integrity,   that  sacrifice   will   be   accomp- 

^  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  chap.  6. 

*  Cf.  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics,  chaps.  1 1  f. 


10  EGOISM 

lished  in  one  or  the  other  of  two  ways : 
either  the  self  will  offer  himself  willingly, 
or  he  will  be  made  to  do  it  by  the  pressure 
of  the  others.  If  he  do  it  through  outside 
pressure,  he  illustrates  what  we  have 
called  objective  goodness.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  do  it  willingly,  he  is  acting  in 
response  to  an  altruistic  impulse  (inborn 
or  acquired)  which  forces  him  to  obey  it. 
Most  altruism  falls  short  of  complete 
sacrifice,  and  furnishes  a  kind  of  social 
momentum  which  spurs  the  hero  on  to 
the  limit. 

Whether  the  altruist  knows  it  or  not, 
he  is  all  the  time  demanding  an  equivalent 
from  the  others.  By  his  own  example, 
and  by  word  of  mouth,  he  exhorts  you  to 
do  good  to  others;  and  he  himself  is 
among  the  others.  Perhaps  he  does  not 
consciously  include  himself  among  the 
others ;  but  he  cannot  detach  himself  from 
them.  He  cannot  exclude  himself  from 
the  others  in  whose  cause  he  seeks  to  en- 
list you.  No  altruist  who  declares  that  he 
is  not  selfish  can  escape  this  reduction  to 


THE  EGOISTIC  PROPOSITION         ii 

absurdity.  He  can  only  say  that  he  is  not 
directly  selfish  or  egoistic. 

If  these  things  are  true,  why  should  we 
not  be  honest  about  it,  and  admit  that  we 
are  all  selfish,  directly  or  indirectly,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously?  When  we  do 
an  altruistic  thing,  we  rather  like  to  have 
the  others  declare  that  we  are  not  selfish, 
do  we  not?  And  when  we  are  told  that 
our  altruism  is  an  indirect  form  of  the 
fundamental  selfishness,  or  egoism,  com- 
mon to  us  all,  it  irritates  us,  and  threatens 
our  secret  sense  of  pleasure.  Perhaps 
we  frown  on  this  view,  and  call  it  "base 
and  ignoble,"  when  it  is  nothing  of  the 
kind. 

The  first  stages  in  perception  of  this 
truth  involve,  as  a  rule,  a  callow  sort  of 
disgust.  The  world  seems  to  be  reduced 
to  a  dead  level  of  monotony.  Interest  and 
color  appear  to  be  taken  out  of  life. 
Those  noble  souls  who  practice  and  preach 
what  is  called  wn-selfishness  look  like 
hypocrites;  and  humanity  seems  to  be 
transformed  into  a  race  of  materialists. 

But  persistence  in  study  along  this  line, 


12  EGOISM 

with  absolute  honesty  in  facing  the  facts, 
be  the  facts  what  they  may,  results  in  a 
different  attitude.  It  is  slowly  realized 
that  the  egoistic  proposition  is  a  report  of 
real  life  in  the  simplest  possible  terms, 
and  that  it  takes  us  directly  into  the  heart 
of  the  great  human  problem.  It  exhibits 
men  everywhere  seeking  the  most  abun- 
dant life,  struggling  for  the  utmost  good. 
Perhaps  the  search  is  unwise ;  perhaps  the 
struggle  is  foolish.  Nevertheless,  the  uni- 
versal object  is  to  get  what  is  thought  to 
be  good.  In  this  world-wide  struggle  the 
paradox  of  altruism  (or  "indirect  selfish- 
ness") plays  an  important  part.  The  ego- 
istic proposition  emphasizes  that  person- 
ality and  personal  relations  are  the  deepest 
and  most  serious  things  in  the  universe. 


Ill 

THE  BIBLE  AND  EGOISM 

As  observed  above,  the  egoistic  propo- 
sition brings  us  face  to  face  with  the 
deepest  and  most  serious  matter  —  the 
problem  of  personaHty.  It  reveals  a  mul- 
titude of  selves  trying,  wisely  or  unwisely, 
to  live  the  most  abundant  life.  When, 
therefore,  we  claim  that  the  Bible  gives 
better  expression  to  the  egoistic  struggle 
for  life  than  any  other  writings  in  the 
world,  we  are  virtually  saying  that  it 
brings  us  by  the  most  direct  and  practical 
route  into  relation  with  the  fact  and  the 
problem  of  personality.  This  is,  of  course, 
a  purely  sociological  way  of  stating  the 
significance  of  the  Bible;  but  even  the 
most  literal  *' orthodox"  cannot  take  ex- 
ception, on  sociological  grounds,  to  this 
appraisal  without  also  denying  that  per- 
sonality is  the  foremost  fact  in  the  uni- 
verse. In  terms  of  religion,  we  might  say 
that  the  Bible  stands  for  the  approach  and 


14  EGOISM 

fellowship  of  God  and  man.  But  this  is 
a  study  in  sociology,  confined  (like  all 
scientific  inquiry)  to  phenomena,  or  things 
as  they  appeal  to  us  through  the  senses; 
and  from  this  standpoint  we  may  speak 
of  the  Bible  only  in  the  terms  used  above. 

Let  it  be  clearly  understood,  then,  that 
the  treatment  of  the  Bible  here  under- 
taken cannot  inquire  into  the  ultimate 
validity  of  its  doctrine  without  leaving  the 
ground  appropriate  to  sociology.  x\s  we 
have  elsewhere  observed,  "a.  work  on 
sociology  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
validity  of  religious  [theological]  doc- 
trine, for  a  discussion  of  the  absolute  con- 
tent of  the  realities  with  which  sociology 
deals  carries  us  at  once  out  of  the  domain 
of  sociology."^ 

In  taking  the  Bible  as  the  egoistic  super- 
lative, we  are  claiming  it  primarily  for 
sociology.  Unless  the  sacred  literature  of 
our  western  civilization  is  approached 
from  the  sociological  standpoint,  it  will  be 
largely  misunderstood.  We  stand  upon 
the  proposition  of  the  so-called  "higher 

^  An  Examination  of  Society  (1903),  Preface,  p.  7. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  EGOISM  15 

criticism,"  which,  when  logically  applied, 
affirms  that  the  conceptions  of  the  Bible 
spring  from  the  natural,  secular  experi- 
ence of  certain  oriental  people.  This  is 
another  way  of  saying  that  nothing  oc- 
curred in  the  history  of  ancient  Israel 
which  does  not  take  place  in  principle,  and 
under  modern  forms,  in  contemporary  life. 


IV 

ISRAEL'S  RELIGION  BEFORE 
THE  EXILE 

It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  dis- 
coveries of  modern  times  that  the  reUgion 
of  the  Bible  is  a  growth  on  the  basis  of 
reHgious  conceptions  common  to  all  the 
ancient  world.  The  facts  about  Israel's 
early  religion  must  be  cited  in  relation  to 
these  common  ideas. 

In  primitive  religion  the  gods  were  al- 
ways members  of  society;  and  there  was 
no  essential  distinction  set  up,  as  there  has 
been  in  later  times,  between  divinity  and 
humanity.  According  to  the  belief  and 
practice  of  their  worshipers,  the  gods  had 
as  real  a  place  in  the  social  fabric  as  the 
worshipers  themselves.  "The  social 
body,"  says  Robertson  Smith,  "was  not 
made  up  of  men  only,  but  of  gods  and 
men.  The  circle  into  which  a  man  w^as 
lx)rn  was  not  simply  a  group  of  kinsfolk 
and  fellow-citizens,  but  embraced  also  cer- 

i6 


ISRAEL'S  RELIGION  17 

tain  divine  beings,  the  gods  of  the  family 
and  the  state,  which  to  the  ancient  mind 
were  as  much  a  part  of  the  particular 
community  with  which  they  stood  con- 
nected as  the  human  members  of  the  so- 
cial circle.  The  relation  between  the  gods 
of  antiquity  and  their  worshipers  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  of  human  rela- 
tionship, and  this  language  was  not  taken 
in  a  figurative  sense,  but  with  strict  liter- 
ality.  If  a  god  was  spoken  of  as  father 
and  his  worshipers  as  his  offspring,  the 
meaning  was  that  the  worshipers  were 
literally  of  his  stock,  and  that  he  and  they 
made  up  one  natural  family  with  recip- 
rocal family  duties  to  one  another."  ^ 

It  is  not  so  important  to  know  how  and 
where  primitive  men  got  their  ideas  about 
the  gods,  as  it  is  to  know  that  they  actu- 
ally believed  in  the  gods.  Yet  some  refer- 
ence to  religious  origins  will  be  helpful  to 
the  present  study.  The  most  widespread 
form  of  early  religion  is  worship  of  the 

^  W.  R.  Smith,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites  (Lon- 
don, 1894),  pp.  29,  30.  Cf.  Barton,  Semitic  Origins 
(New  York,   1902),  chap.  3. 


i8  EGOISM 

family  ancestors.^  Good  examples  of  this 
are  found  in  the  Romans,  with  their  lares 
and  penates,  or  gods  of  the  household ; 
and  the  Chinese,  with  their  ancestral  tab- 
lets. In  view  of  this  fact,  there  is  nothing 
strange  about  the  widespread  belief  in  the 
actual,  physical  fatherhood  of  the  gods. 
It  has  been  shown  by  Rev.  Duff  Mc- 
Donald, a  Presbyterian  missionary  in  cen- 
tral Africa,  that  all  the  prayers  and  offer- 
ings of  the  natives  are  presented  to  the 
spirits  of  important  dead  men.  ''  It  is 
here,"  he  says,  "that  we  find  the  great 
center  of  the  native  religion.  The  spirits 
of  the  dead  are  the  gods  of  the  living." 
Primitive  people,  in  common  with  us  all, 
dream  that  the  dead  are  alive ;  and  to  the 

^  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  worship  of  the  dead 
is  the  basis  of  religion.  The  basis  of  religion  is  in 
the  human  mind  ;  while  the  origin  of  religion  is  a 
historical  matter.  The  tendency  of  mind  leading  to 
personalization  of  objective  nature  is  given  specific 
direction  by  the  experiences  which,  in  all  races  at  a 
certain  level  of  culture,  lead  to  worship  of  the  dead 
—  especially  the  heroic  dead.  "  Religion  is,  in  fact, 
a  growth  springing  from  the  soil  of  human  nature, 
but  taking  its  shape  and  hue  from  the  social 
medium.  The  science  of  religion  is  for  this  reason 
under  a  dual  dependence,  owing  allegiance  to  psy- 
chology no  less  than  to  sociology." —  Ross,  Founda- 
tions of  Sociology  (New  York,  1905),  p.  17. 


ISRAEL'S  RELIGION  19 

primitive  mind  the  dream-world  is  an 
objective  fact.  Only  those  dead  persons 
are  worshiped  who  have  been  specially 
important  and  helpful  in  the  flesh;  and 
they  are  served  in  order  to  secure  the 
good,  or  to  avert  the  evil,  which  they  are 
supposed  to  be  able  to  send.  Idols  are  at 
first  part  or  all  of  the  dead  man's  body. 
Egyptian  gods,  for  instance,  are  often 
represented  by  a  mummy.  At  a  later  stage 
in  the  development  of  religion,  the  idols 
are  simply  images.  These  manufactured 
idols  acquire  sanctity  with  age,  becoming 
objects  of  increasing  awe  to  later  genera- 
tions, who  are  frequently  ignorant  or  con- 
fused about  their  real  meaning.^ 

As  already  observed,  the  most  wide- 
spread form  of  religion  is  worship  of  the 
family  ancestors.  But  above  these  private 
worships  there  grew  in  ancient  times  a 
superstructure  of  public  religion.  Certain 
gods  came  to  be  recognized  in  common  by 
whole  clans,  tribes,  nations,  or  empires. 
The   genesis   of   these   more   widespread 

^  Grant  Allen,  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God 
(New  York,  1897),  pp.  24  f.  and  79  f. 


20  EGOISM 

cults  is  easily  understood,  for  we  can  often 
see  them  in  process  on  the  field  of  ancient 
history.  A  strong  tribe  subjugates  a 
number  of  weaker  ones;  and  the  god  of 
this  dominant  tribe  is  thereupon  acknowl- 
edged by  all  the  tribes  in  common.  Or,  a 
number  of  tribes  unite  against  their  ene- 
mies ;  and  the  deity  of  the  leading  tribe  is 
taken  as  the  general,  or  national,  god  of 
all  the  tribes  concerned.  These  wider 
worships  do  not  in  any  way  interfere  with 
the  narrower  cults  of  the  families,  clans, 
and  tribes  embraced  within  the  union. 

The  religion  of  Israel  before  the  exile 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  essentially  unlike 
the  religions  of  other  primitive  peoples. 
This  position  has  been  accepted  by  the 
large  majority  of  professional  scholars 
who  have  studied  the  subject;  and  it  is 
here  taken  as  an  established  fact.  Dis- 
senting readers  can  at  least  assume  it  with 
us  for  the  time  being. 

It  was  not  until  after  the  Babylonian 
exile  that  ethical  monotheism  was  offi- 
cially established  as  the  religion  of  Israel. 
Critical  study  of  the  literature  which  has 


i 


ISRAEL'S  RELIGION  21 

been  collected  into  our  Old  Testament 
shows  that  the  official  religion  of  Israel 
was  polytheistic  before  the  exile.  They 
had  many  gods,  which  were  regarded  as 
real  persons.  There  were  family  gods,  or 
Teraphim;  district  gods,  or  Baalim;  and 
above  all  the  smaller  cults  was  the  cult  of 
Yahweh,  "the  god  of  Israel"  —  the  deity 
whom  all  the  tribes  acknowledged  in  their 
national,  or  collective,  character.^ 

*  The  first  syllable  of  the  holy  name  "  Yahweh  " 
is  given  in  Ps.  68 :  4,  and  many  other  places,  as 
"  JAH."  It  is  pronounced  "  Yah,"  as  in  the  word 
"  hallelujah,"  which  means  "  praise  Yah."  The 
form  "  Jehovah  "  was  introduced  by  a  sixteenth- 
century  monk,  and  was  unknown  to  the  Israelites. 
All  that  we  have  in  the  Hebrew  text  is  the  conson- 
ants YHWH   (mn"!). 


THE  COVENANT  WITH  YAHWEH 

Not  only  was  Yahweh  thought  of  be- 
fore the  exile  as  one  god  among  many  real 
gods;  but  careful  investigation  makes  it 
clear  that  he  was  not  originally  worshiped 
by  Israel,  his  cult  being  derived  from  an- 
other people.  So  far  as  Israel  was  con- 
cerned, Yahweh  was  not  a  nature-god, 
whose  blood  flowed  in  the  veins  of  his 
worshipers.  He  was  a  covenant  god, 
whose  connection  with  his  people  was  not 
physical.  It  is  indeed  upon  an  actual,  his- 
torical covenant,  or  testament  (the  tenns 
are  synonymous),  that  the  Bible  revolves. 

Primitive  tribes  often  adopt  outsiders. 
When  this  is  done,  the  incomer  not  only 
covenants  with  the  people  of  the  tribe;  he 
enters,  at  the  same  time,  into  covenant 
with  their  god.  In  the  very  nature  of 
primitive  religion,  an  outsider  could  not 
relate  himself  to  a  people  without  also 
coming    into    relation    with    their    deity. 


COVENANT  WITH  YAHWEH  23 

since  people  and  god  formed  a  single  so- 
ciety. The  covenant  relation  was  not 
limited  as  to  numbers,  for  a  whole  tribe 
might  in  this  way  become  connected  with 
a  hitherto  foreign  god.  Thus  we  see  that 
primitive  religious  ideas  provided  for 
something  more  than  a  natural,  or  blood- 
relation,  between  the  gods  and  their  wor- 
shipers. 

All  the  Old  Testament  sources  unite  on 
the  proposition  that  Israel  and  Yahweh 
became  specially  connected  as  people  and 
god  at  a  particular  time  and  place.  ''  I  am 
Yahweh  thy  god  from  the  land  of  Egypt," 
says  Hosea.^  And  we  are  told  over  and 
over  again  that  Yahweh  chose  Israel  at 
the  time  of  the  exodus,  delivered  them 
from  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  entered  into 
definite  relations  with  them  at  Horeb- 
Sinai  and  Kadesh. 

At  the  period  of  the  exodus  we  find  that 
the  Israelites  came  into  close  and  lasting 
relations  with  a  pastoral  people  known  as 
the  Kenites,  who,  in  turn,  belonged  to  a 
larger  social  group  called  the  Midianites. 

^  Hos.   12  :  9. 


24  EGOISM 

The  Israelite  leader  Moses  married  into 
the  Kenites,  and  became  son-in-law  of 
Jethro,  their  priest  and  leader.^  Later, 
we  find  that  the  Kenites,  or  some  of  them, 
accompanied  the  Israelites  into  the  wilder- 
ness of  Judah.^  Later  still,  we  see  the 
wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite  enlisted  in  the 
cause  of  Israel.^  There  were  Kenites  in 
the  south  of  Judah  during  the  days  of 
Saul  and  David. ^  At  a  still  later  period, 
when  the  foreign  Baal  party  was  wiped 
out  by  the  Yahweh  party,  we  find  Jeho- 
nadab,  the  son  of  Rechab  the  Kenite,  on 
the  side  of  Israel  and  Yahweh.^  Still 
further  along  in  the  history,  in  the  time  of 
Jeremiah,  we  see  the  Kenite  descendants 
of  Jehonadab  pouring  into  Jerusalem 
from  the  country  for  fear  of  the  Chaldean 
army/  Thus  it  is  plain  that  the  Israelites 
were  associated  with  the  Kenites  for  many 
centuries. 

Looking  further,  we  find  that  the  Old 

*  Exod.,  chaps.   2  and  3.    *  Judg.,  chaps.  4,  5. 
'Judg.   1:16.  "  I   Sam.  15:6;    30:30. 

'2  Kings   10:  15   f.     For  Jehonadab's  Kenite  de- 
scent through  Rechab  see  i  Chron.  2:  55. 
^Jer.,  chap.  35. 


COVENANT  WITH  YAHWEH  25 

Testament  shows  persistent  traces  of  the 
association  of  Yahweh  with  the  Sinai  re- 
gion, where  the  Kenites  Hved.  In  one 
place  we  read :  "  Yahweh  came  from 
Sinai,  and  rose  from  Seir  unto  them.  He 
shined  forth  from  Mount  Paran."*^  The 
terms  "  Paran  "  and  ''  Seir  "  are  connected 
with  the  Sinai  region.  Elsewhere  we 
read  :  ''  Yahweh,  thou  wentest  forth  out 
of  Seir."  ^  In  another  place :  ''  The  Holy 
One  came  from  Mount  Paran."  ^^  Tradi- 
tion sends  the  prophet  Elijah,  in  a  season 
of  discouragement,  to  find  Yahweh  at  the 
old  mountain  Horeb-Sinai.^^  Thus  we 
see,  not  only  that  Israel  and  the  Kenites 
were  intimately  associated,  but  that  Yah- 
weh, the  covenant  god  of  Israel,  was  per- 
sistently connected  with  the  home  country 
of  the  Kenites. 

As  to  the  significance  of  these  facts,  it 
is  becoming  clear  to  scholars  that  Israel 
derived  the  worship  of  Yahweh  from  the 
Kenites.  Not  that  the  religion  of  Yah- 
weh,   as    we    have    it    in    its    final    Old 

«  Deut.  33  ■■  2.  '"  Habak.  3  :  3. 

*Judg,   5:4.  "i  Kings,  chap.  19. 


26  EGOISM 

Testament  form,  came  from  such  a  source. 
Far  from  that.  The  later,  developed  reli- 
gion of  the  Old  Testament  is  the  work  of 
the  prophets  of  Israel  on  the  basis  of  his- 
tory. But  in  the  early  religion  of  Israel, 
Yahweh  was  one  among  many  real  gods. 
He  was  a  local  deity,  who  became  asso- 
ciated with  Israel  by  covenant;  and  the 
only  point  from  which  he  could  have  been 
derived  seems  to  be  the  Kenites. 

A  very  simple  and  natural  account  of 
the  covenant  is  preserved  in  the  eighteenth 
chapter  of  Exodus.  Here  we  read  that 
Jethro,  the  Kenite  priest,  Moses'  father- 
in-law,  brings  a  burnt-offering  and  sacri- 
fices for  the  Divine  Majesty  (i.  e.,  Yah- 
weh). ''And  Aaron  and  all  the  elders  of 
Israel  came  to  eat  bread  with  Moses' 
father-in-law  before  Elohim  (Divine 
Majesty)."  This  was  a  sacrificial  meal. 
It  represents  nothing  less  than  the  cove- 
nant between  Israel  and  the  Kenites, 
which  included  the  induction  of  Israel  into 
the  worship  of  Yahweh.  The  leading 
character  in  this  transaction  is  Jethro,  the 
Kenite  priest.     Jethro  it  is  who,   in  his 


COVENANT  WITH  YAHWEH  27 

priestly  character,  brings  the  burnt- 
offerings  and  the  sacrifices.  And  it  is 
with  Jethro  that  Aaron  and  the  elders  of 
Israel  come  to  eat  bread.  True  to  the 
facts  of  primitive  religion,  this  ancient 
tradition  puts  the  Kenite  priest  into  the 
foreground ;  and,  in  speaking  of  Israel,  it 
specifies  Aaron  and  the  elders  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  Moses.  The  omission  of  Moses 
from  this  ceremony  is  significant,  for,  hav- 
ing previously  married  into  the  tribe,  he 
was  already  in  covenant  with  the  Kenites 
and  their  god. 

This  is  the  form  under  which,  on  the 
basis  of  the  Old  Testament  itself,  we  are 
compelled  to  envisage  the  facts.  "  The  re- 
sults with  which  we  have  to  content  our- 
selves in  the  Mosaic  period  are  meagre," 
says  Professor  H.  P.  Smith.  "  There  may 
have  been  an  Israelite  clan  that  sojourned 
in  Egypt.  Its  exodus  was  not  improbably 
due  to  a  religious  leader.  Under  this  reli- 
gious leader  the  people  entered  into  cove- 
nant with  other  desert-dwelling  clans  at 
Kadesh.      The  god   who  sanctioned   the 


28  EGOISM 

alliance  and  who  became  a  party  to  it  was 
Yahweh,  the  Storm-god  of  Sinai."  ^^ 

^*  H.  P.  Smith,  Old  Testament  History  (New 
York,  1903),  p.  72.  The  Kenite  derivation  of  the 
primitive  Yahweh  cult  is  accepted  by  Tiele,  Stade, 
Budde,  Guthe,  Wildeboer,  Cheyne,  H.  P.  Smith, 
W.  R.  Harper,  G.  A.  Barton,  G.  F.  Moore,  and  many 
others.  It  represents  an  encouraging  approach  to  the 
sociological  standpoint  from  the  ground  of  theology. 
It  is  this  particular  covenant  (fT^in)  involving  the 
Kenites,  that  is  in  the  minds  of  the  great  formative 
prophets.  "  The  covenant  of  the  prophets  is  the 
covenant  of  Sinai,  in  which  Yahweh  became  god  of 
the  nation  "  ( Davidson,  Theology  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment [New  York,  1904],  p.  246).  The  word  trans- 
lated "  covenant,"  berith,  occurs  over  250  times  in 
the  Old  Testament.  Its  later  significance  varies  con- 
siderably from  its  earlier  meaning. 

Our  indebtedness  to  the  excellent  work  by  Pro- 
fessor Budde,  of  Strassburg,  is  acknowledged  in  an- 
other connection. 


VI 

THE  INVASION  OF  CANAAN 

After  the  covenant  with  the  Kenites 
and  their  god  Yahweh,  the  next  important 
step  in  the  early  history  of  Israel  was  the 
invasion  of  Canaan. 

For  many  centuries  before  this  time  the 
land  of  Canaan  had  been,  not  only  settled, 
but  civilized.  In  the  preceding  five  hun- 
dred years  the  country  had  been  ruled  and 
fought  over  by  three  great  oriental 
powers.  The  Babylonians  held  sway 
there  so  long  that  their  language  had  been 
adopted  as  a  medium  of  written  communi- 
cation among  the  upper  classes.  But  in 
the  fifteenth  century  before  Christ,  Baby- 
lonia was  troubled  at  home  by  the  rising 
military  power  of  her  northern  offshoot, 
Assyria;  while  in  Canaan  itself  she  was 
replaced  by  the  northeastward  advance  of 
Egypt.  Governors  from  Egypt  were 
placed  in  the  Canaanite  cities.  Before  a 
29 


30  EGOISM 

century  has  passed,  however,  we  find 
Egyptian  governors  writing  home  for 
help,  saying  that  they  are  unable  to  hold 
the  territory.  These  letters,  coming  from 
such  cities  as  Jerusalem,  Tyre,  Gezer,  and 
Ashkelon,  have  been  recently  discovered 
in  Egypt.  As  the  Egyptians  were  unable 
to  retain  the  country,  it  was  relinquished, 
in  part  to  local  Canaanite  princes,  and  in 
part  to  the  Hittites,  w^hose  seat  was  in 
Asia  Minor  in  the  north.  It  was  at  this 
interesting  juncture  that  the  barbarian 
Israelites  broke  from  the  desert  into  "  the 
land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey." 

According  to  the  first  chapter  of  Judges, 
the  invaders  merely  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing a  foothold  in  the  rural  districts,  leav- 
ing the  Canaanites  in  control  of  the  walled 
cities  and  many  of  the  dependent  agri- 
cultural villages.  The  emphasis  here  is  to 
be  placed  on  the  distribution  of  the  social 
elements  at  the  basis  of  the  Bible  history : 
the  Israelites,  rural;  the  Canaanites, 
urban.  This  fact  must  be  held  firmly  in 
mind.  Its  importance  comes  clearly  into 
view  as  we  proceed.     The  claim  here  is 


INVASION  OF  CANAAN  31 

not  that  the  IsraeHtes  were  in  complete 
control  of  the  country  districts;  nor  that 
the  Canaanites  were  uniformly  confined  to 
the  cities.  We  are  merely  trying  to  state 
the  situation  as  a  whole. 


VII 
YAHWEH  AND  THE  BAALIM 

The  Canaanites,  in  their  city  strong- 
holds, were  at  first  full  of  hostility  against 
the .  Israelites  who  had  intruded  into  the 
land.  But  there  was  no  reason  for  per- 
manent feud  between  them;  and  history 
shows  that  the  two  elements  were  slowly 
adjusted,  melting  at  length  into  a  new 
social  grouping.  Ethnically,  they  were 
well  prepared  for  this.  Both  belonged  to 
the  great  Semitic  race.  Both  spoke  varia- 
tions of  the  same  tongue. 

The  social  aggregate  resulting  from 
their  union  was  essentially  identical  with 
all  human  aggregates.  But  the  outward 
forms  in  which  the  life  of  Israel  in  Canaan 
finally  reached  expression  were  so  unique 
that  they  have  struck  in  upon  the  con- 
sciousness of  all  succeeding  ages. 

The  book  of  Judges  gives  a  brief  and 
fragmentary  account  of  conditions  in 
Canaan  from  the  period  of  the  Israelite 
32 


YAHWEH  AND  THE  BAALIM  33 

invasion  clown  to  the  period  of  the  mon- 
archy. At  the  beginning  of  the  book,  the 
two  elements  are  at  sword's  points ;  at  the 
end,  union  is  in  sight. 

After  the  people  of  Yahweh  had  entered 
Canaan,  attacks  were  made  upon  the  land 
by  still  other  outsiders.  As  the  Israelites 
gradually  settled  down  in  the  country  dis- 
tricts, leaving  the  Canaanites  mainly  in 
the  towns  and  their  vicinity,  these  further 
attacks  proved  to  be  troublesome,  not  only 
to  the  Israelites,  but  to  the  Canaanites  as 
well.  Enemies  from  without  the  land  had 
no  occasion  for  making  a  permanent  dis- 
tinction between  Canaan  and  Israel,  for 
outsiders  were  enemies  of  all  the  people  in 
the  territory  they  coveted.  Not  only  this ; 
but  since  the  Israelites  were  gradually 
identifying  themselves  with  the  rural  eco- 
nomic life  of  Canaan,  foreign  attacks 
naturally  disturbed  the  food-supply  of  the 
Canaanite  cities.  All  this  at  length  had 
the  effect  of  creating  a  community  of  in- 
terest and  feeling  between  the  older  and 
newer  inhabitants  of  the  land. 

In  the  third  chapter  of  Judges  we  read 


34  EGOISM 

that  "the  children  of  Israel  dwelt  among 
the  Canaanites,  and  took  their  daughters 
to  be  their  wives,  and  gave  their  own 
daughters  to  their  sons,  and  served  their 
gods."  The  worship  of  the  Canaan ite 
gods  by  the  Israelites  was  perfectly- 
natural.  We  need  to  hold  steadily  in 
mind  the  fact  that  all  ancient  religions 
contemplated  the  gods,  equally  with  men, 
as  part  of  the  social  aggregate.  The  di- 
vine and  the  human  members  of  the  social 
circle  were  thought  to  be  essentially  the 
same,  differing  only  as  the  heroic  man 
differs  from  the  mean  man.  According 
to  these  ideas,  refusal  to  recognize  the 
gods  of  people  with  whom  one  associates 
is  like  entering  a  home  and  ignoring  the 
head  of  the  family.  It  is  not  merely  rude ; 
it  draws  down  the  displeasure  and  ill-will 
of  the  ignored  one. 

There  was  nothing  else,  then,  for  the 
Israelites  to  do.  As  they  gradually  settled 
down,  they  came  into  more  and  more 
intimate  association  with  the  earlier  in- 
habitants of  the  land.  As  we  are  told  in 
the  passage  just  quoted,  the  Israelites  and 


YAHWEH  AND  THE  BAALIM  35 

Canaanites  intermarried.  In  the  face  of 
this  growing  fellowship,  what  could  the 
Israelites  do'  but  associate  also  with  the 
Canaanite  gods?  They  did  not  thereby 
cease  to  acknowledge  the  godship  of  Yah- 
weh.  They  were  still  the  people  of  Yah- 
weh ;  and  he  was  still  the  general  god  of 
all  the  tribes  of  Israel. 

Worship  of  the  local  gods  was  neces- 
sary not  only  in  the  general  view  of 
primitive  religion;  it  was  demanded  by 
the  special  situation.  The  nomadic,  pas- 
toral Israelites,  fresh  from  the  desert, 
were  eager  to  learn  the  arts  of  agriculture 
and  settled  life,  and  to  do  anything  con- 
tributory to  success  in  those  pursuits. 
The  gods  of  Canaan  w^re  thought  to  pre- 
side over  the  peaceful  arts,  bless  the  soil, 
and  supply  the  dew  and  rain  without 
which  the  crops  could  not  grow.  There- 
fore, on  these  grounds  also,  Israel  must 
court  their  favor.  Yahweh  was  not  at 
first  regarded  as  a  god  of  Canaan,  since 
his  people  had  obtained  a  foothold  only  in 
the  country  districts.  Nor  was  he  an 
agricultural  god.     He  was  a  divinity  of 


Z6  EGOISM 

the  desert,  the  mountain,  and  the  storm. 
He  was  a  god  that  ''dwelt  in  the  bush."^ 
Over  and  over  again  the  Old  Testament 
declares  that  he  was  a  god  of  hosts,  or 
armies,  mighty  in  battle;  and  the  careful 
student  can  see  that  this  was  his  earliest 
character.  He  was  powerful  in  his  own 
sphere ;  but  that  sphere  was  distinct  from 
the  world  presided  over  by  the  Baalim, 
the  local  gods  of  Canaan. 

^Deut.  33  :  i6.  Cf.  Driver,  Deuteronomy  ("  In- 
ternational Critical  Commentary,"  New  York,  1895), 
p  406. 


VIII 
UNION  AND  MONARCHY 

Israelites  and  Canaanites  were  at  length 
welded  into  a  single  political  mass  by 
pressure  of  the  Philistines  and  Ammon- 
ites. Consideration  of  this  fact  raises 
points  of  basic  importance. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Israelites  and 
Canaanites,  in  combining  against  their 
enemies,  were  not  rallied  to  war  in  the 
name  of  any  of  the  local  Baalim,  whose 
worship  centered  in  the  cities.  None  of 
these  gods  were  gods  of  war;  they  were 
the  deities  of  an  essentially  peaceful 
people.  Besides  this,  none  of  them  had  a 
general  jurisdiction  in  the  land.  None  of 
them  had  been  acknowledged  at  the  same 
time  by  all  the  Canaanite  cities.  But,  in 
contrast  with  the  Baalim,  a  certain  god 
was  generally  recognized  and  worshiped 
by  people  scattered  all  through  the  rural 
parts  of  Canaan.  He  was  not  merely  a 
district  god,  like  the  Canaanite  divinities; 
37 


38  EGOISM 

nor  was  he  a  god  of  peace,  whose  wor- 
shipers had  been  settled  in  their  posses- 
sions time  out  of  mind.  He  was  god  of  all 
the  tribes ;  and  the  Israelites  loved  to  think 
of  him  as  a  god  of  hosts,  or  armies, 
mighty  in  battle.  ''Yahweh  is  a  man  of 
war,"  they  said  proudly.^  Later  genera- 
tions even  had  a  book  entitled  "  The  Book 
of  the  Wars  of  Yahweh."2  To  what 
other  god  in  the  land  could  the  allied 
Israelites  and  Canaanites  look  with  as 
much  hope  of  success  against  their  ene- 
mies? The  local  Baalim  had  not  been 
able  to  keep  Yahweh  and  Israel  out  of 
Canaan.  It  was  Yahweh,  therefore,  who 
led  the  allies  against  their  common  ene- 
mies; and  it  was  by  his  power  that  the 
invading  hosts  were  rolled  back.  At 
length  city  and  country  alike  were  united 
into  a  single  political  territory  under  a 
king.  All  its  people  became  Yahweh's 
people,  for  he  had  given  them  all  success 
against  their  enemies;  and  since  he  was 
"god  of  Israel,"  the  Canaanites  became 
Israelites   in  name.      "  The  land   of   Ca- 

^  Exod.   15:3.  -Numb.  21:14  f. 


UNION  AND  MONARCHY  39 

naan"  became  ''the  land  of  Israel." 
Thus,  the  Israelites  never  became  Canaan- 
ites.  On  the  contrary,  the  latter  took  the 
name  of  Israel.^  "The  old  population," 
writes  Wellhausen,  "  slowly  became  amal- 
gamated with  the  new.  In  this  way  the 
Israelites  received  a  very  important  ac- 
cession to  their  numbers.  In  Deborah's 
time  the  fighting  men  of  Israel  numbered 
forty  thousand ;  the  tribe  of  Dan,  when  it 
migrated  to  Laish,  counted  six  hundred 
warriors;  Gideon  pursued  the  Midian- 
ites  with  three  hundred.  But  in  the 
reigns  of  Saul  and  David  we  find  a  popu- 
lation reckoned  by  millions.  The  rapid 
increase  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  in- 
corporation of  the  Canaanites."  ^ 

^  Cornill,  History  of  the  People  of  Israel  (Chi- 
cago, 1899),  p.  48;  Wellhausen,  History  of  Israel, 
etc.  (London,  1891),  p.  8;  Davidson,  Old  Testa- 
ment Prophecy  (Edinburgh,  1903),  pp.  39,  6;^. 

*  Wellhausen,  op.  cit.,  p.  35.  This  has  now  be- 
come a  commonplace  of  biblical  scholarship.  "  The 
history  of  the  times  of  the  Judges  and  of  the  early 
kingdom,"  says  Professor  G.  F.  Moore,  "  proves  that 
many  generations  elapsed  after  the  invasion  before 
Israel  was  in  full  possession  of  the  land  ;  and  that, 
far  from  being  extirpated  at  one  stroke,  the  Canaan- 
ites  remained  for  centuries  by  the  side  of  the 
Israelites,  and  disappeared  at  last  by  gradual  absorp- 


40  EGOISM 

The  resulting  mixed  race  of  Canaan- 
itish  Israelites  naturally  emphasized  its 
descent  from  the  conquering  Israelite 
stock,  and  rapidly  forgot  its  Canaanite 
ancestry.  In  coming  centuries  the  inva- 
sion of  the  land  by  the  tribes  of  Israel 
projected  itself  into  bold  relief  against 
the  historical  background;  while  the  sub- 
sequent intermingling  of  the  races  made 
no  impression  on  the  popular  mind. 
Everybody  wanted,  of  course,  to  be  known 
as  descended  from  the  conquerors.  As  a 
result,  later  generations  cherished  the  tra- 
dition that  their  ancestors  came  into  the 
country,  and  swept  away  the  alien  Ca- 
naanites.  This  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  stock 
ideas  of  the  un-critical  Bible  reader;  and 
unless  we  take  the  trouble  to  look  below 
the  surface,  and  hold  the  real  facts  of  the 
situation  steadily  in  mind,  we  shall  miss 
the  historical  truth. 

We  have  already  seen  that,  after  the 
Israelites  had  settled  among  the  Canaan- 

tion  in  the  dominant  population.  In  all  this,  the  sub- 
se<|vient  history  confirms  the  general  truthfulness  oi 
the  representation  in  Judg.  I."  —  Moore,  Polychrome 
Judges    (New   York,    1898),   p.   47. 


UNION  AND  MONARCHY  41 

ites,  the  two  races  intermarried.    Alliances 
were  contracted  between  the  families  of 
the  Israelite  chiefs  and  elders,  who  had 
seized    the    undefended    agricultural    dis- 
tricts,  and  the   families   of   wealthy   Ca- 
naanites,   who  resided  principally  in  the 
towns.      One  of   these  mixed   marriages 
was  that  contracted  between  Gideon,  an 
Israelite  rustic  chief,  and  a  woman  of  the 
Canaanite  city  of  Shechem.^     An  issue  of 
this  union  was  the  ill-fated  Abimelech.   It 
was   Gideon's   family,   by   the   way,    that 
headed  the  first  attempt  to  unite  country 
and  city  in  a  kingdom.^     The  movement 
failed  at  this  time  because  it  was  too  early. 
At  the  outset  the  balance  of  power  in 
the  new  nation  was  in  the  country  aris- 
tocracy.    Accordingly,  it  is  the  country, 
with  its  agricultural  interests,   that  con- 
trols the  earlier  history  of  the  kingdom. 
We  hear  but  little  of  the  cities  at  first,  not 
because  they  were  not  yet  in  existence,  hut 
because   the   new   nation   was   originally 
dominated  by  the  rural  party.    Gideon,  as 
already  observed,  was  a  clan  chief  in  the 

°Judg.  8:31,  and  chap.  9,  "Judg.,  chap.  9. 


42  EGOISM 

agricultural  districts/  Saul,  the  first 
king,  was  the  son  of  Kish,  a  wealthy 
farmer.^  David,  the  next  king,  also  came 
of  a  rural  family,  and  began  life  as  a 
shepherd.^  In  the  earlier  part  of  his 
career  he  married  the  widow  of  Nabal,  a 
rich  country  landlord.^ ^ 

But  intermarriages  between  the  rural 
Israelites  and  the  city  Canaanites  pro- 
duced families  which  inherited  l^oth  city 
and  country  property.  This  tended  to 
carry  the  balance  of  power  into  the  cities, 
where  wealth  had  centered  long  before 
the  Israelite  invasion.  The  shifting  of 
the  balance  of  power  toward  the  cities 
probably  became  noticeable  even  in  the 
reign  of  David.  At  a  later  period  in  his 
career  he  forsook  the  country;  took  for- 
cible possession  of  Jerusalem,  which  had 
remained  Canaanite  up  to  this  time ;  and 
identified  himself  so  closely  with  the  place 
that  it  became  known  as  "the  city  of 
David." ^^       The    third    king,    Solomon, 

^  Judg.  6  :  1 1. 

*  I    Sam,  9:1;    11:5.        ^"^  I    Sam.  25  :  2,  42. 

"i    Sam.   16:11.  "2  Sam.  5:6,  7,  9. 


UNION  AND  MONARCHY  43 

made  his  headquarters  in  the  city.  Under 
him  we  may  suppose  that  the  process  of 
social  amalgamation,  begun  in  the  judges 
period,  was  practically  completed.^ ^ 

^-  In  the  editorial  revision  of  i  Kings,  chap.  9, 
Solomon  is  supposed  to  reduce  to  slavery  the  rem- 
nant of  the  earlier  inhabitants  of  the  land.  But  the 
fusion  of  Canaanites  and  Israelites  was  accom- 
plished before  this  time  ;  and  the  only  ground  upon 
which  even  a  limited  historical  application  can  be 
conceded  to  this  passage  is  the  possibility  that  small 
groups  of  Canaanites  had  succeeded  in  maintaining 
isolation. 


IX 

THE  INCREASE  OF  YAHWEH 

We  have  seen  that  Yahweh  was  re- 
garded at  the  outset  as  a  god  of  local 
jurisdiction.  But  the  rise  and  progress 
of  Canaanitish  Israel  brought  with  it  the 
rise  of  Yahweh  among  the  gods. 

At  his  lowest  estate,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge,  Yahweh  was  the  tribal  deity  of  the 
Kenites.  But  through  the  covenant  be- 
tween these  desert  wanderers  and  the 
Israelites  the  latter  acknowledged  him  as 
their  god.  The  situation  is  exactly  stiaick 
off  by  Jeremiah  when  he  says :  "  Israel 
was  consecrated  [ness].  unto  Yahwxh  — 
the  first  fruits  of  his  increase."^  The 
setting  apart,  or  consecrating,  of  Israel 
unto  Yahweh  is  rightly  thought  of  by  the 
prophet  quoted  as  marking  the  early  steps 
of  Yahweh 's  increase.  He  had  chosen 
Israel,   delivered   them    from    Egypt,    de- 

^  Jer.  2:3:  cf.  2  Sam.  7  :  23,  where  Yahweh  is 
said  to  choose  Israel  in  order  "  to  make  him  a 
name."     Cf.   Neh.  9:  10. 

44 


INCREASE  OF  YAHWEH  45 

feated  the  gods  of  Egypt,  and  given  his 
new  people  a  home  in  the  land  of  Canaan. 
This  tradition,  of  course,  did  not  mean  so 
much  in  the  judges  period,  before  the 
founding  of  the  monarchy,  as  it  did  after- 
ward; for  in  the  early  period  the  term 
''  Israel "  meant  only  the  country  folk. 
But  after  the  union  of  city  and  country, 
and  the  disappearance  of  the  Canaanites 
under  the  name  of  Israel,  the  tradition 
acquired  more  weight;  for  the  term 
*'  Israel ''  now  represented  far  more  than 
at  first.  To  the  later  generations  issuing 
from  the  union  of  Israelites  and  Canaan- 
ites the  tradition  that  Yahweh  had  given 
Israel  a  home  in  Canaan  meant  not  merely 
that  he  had  given  them  the  rural  districts, 
but  that  he  had  conquered  for  them  the 
entire  land  of  Canaan.  This  is  a  proposi- 
tion which  the  biblical  writers  never  suc- 
ceed in  adjusting  with  the  facts,  one  affirm- 
ing that  all  the  Canaanites  were  extermi- 
nated;^   another,  that  Israel  was  able  to 

^  Josh.    11:  16   f.     This  account  cannot  be   forced 
into  agreement  with  the  history. 


46  EGOISM 

take  only  the  country  districts.^  How- 
ever this  may  be,  the  increase  of  Israel 
brought  with  it  the  increase  of  Yahweh. 
He  advanced  from  the  position  of  a  desert, 
tribal  god  to  that  of  a  national  god. 

,  But  this  was  not  all.  Israel  hardly  be- 
came a  nation  before  it  rose  to  an  imperial 
I)Osition.  The  Amalekites  had  been  se- 
verely chastised.  The  Philistines,  on  the 
southwest,  had  been  so  completely  de- 
feated that  they  never  again  harassed  the 
land.  The  Moabites.  Ammonites,  Edom- 
ites,  and  Arameans,  on  the  east  and  north- 
east, w^ere  defeated  and  put  to  tribute  by 
Israel.  According  to  primitive  theology, 
the  gods  of  all  these  peoples  therefore  fell 
below  the  level  of  the  great  deity  of  Israel, 
who  was  plainly  showing  himself  to  be 
*' a  god  of  hosts,  mighty  in  battle." 

The  people  of  Israel  began  to  be  proud. 
Comparatively  ignorant  of  geography  and 
history,  they  believed  their  country  was 
becoming  the  greatest  in  the  world,  and 

^Judg.  1:27  f.  This  is  the  narrative  on  which 
all  modern  students  of  the  Old  Testament  history 
depend. 


INCREASE  OF  YAHWEH  47 

their  god  the  greatest  of  all  gods.^  He 
had  shown  himself  superior  to  the  divini- 
ties of  Egypt,  Philistia,  Moab,  Ammon, 
Edom,  Aramea,  and  Amalek.  Of  the 
other  peoples  in  the  eastern  world  at  this 
critical  period  there  were  none  that  could 
have  any  positive  influence  on  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  Israel.  The  Phoe- 
nicians, on  the  northwest,  were  a  com- 
mercial race;  and  their  gods  made  no 
impression.  The  Babylonians,  having 
long  ago  deserted  Canaan,  were  too  far 
away  in  their  distant  homeland  to  exercise 
any  influence  upon  the  imagination  of 
Yahweh's  people.  And  the  equally  re- 
mote Assyrian  kingdom  had  not  at  this 

*  The  idea  that  Israel  was  the  greatest  nation 
survived  into  the  eighth  century  and  beyond  —  a 
period  far  later  than  that  which  we  are  here  study- 
ing. Cf.  Amos  6:  I,  where  Israel  is  called  "the 
chief  of  the  nations;"  and  Jer.  31:7,  where  the 
same  term,  "  head,"  or  "  chief,"  of  the  nations,  is 
applied.  The  idea  reappears  in  the  post-exilic 
Isa.  61:5  f.,  and  becomes  a  stock  element  of  the 
Jewish  messianic  hope.  The  expansion  of  the 
Yahweh  conception  had  thus  an  ample  basis  in  social 
psychology.  Cf.  Kuenen,  The  Religion  of  Israel 
(London,  1882),  Vol.  I,  p.  342;  Harper,  Amos  and 
Hosea  (New  York,  1905),  p.  143:  G.  A.  Smith, 
Book  of  the  Tzvelve  Prophets  (New  York),  Vol.  I, 
p.  173;  Duff,  Theology  and  Ethics  of  the  Hebrews 
(New  York,  1902),  p.  32. 


48  EGOISM 

time  grown  powerful  enough  to  throw  its 
armies  upon  the  Mediterranean  seaboard. 
Thus,  in  the  thought  of  Israel,  Yahweh 
had  risen  superior  to  all  gods  with  whom 
he  had  come  in  contact;  and  it  was  a 
natural  inference,  flattering  to  the  pride 
of  Israel,  that  he  was  more  powerful  than 
all  the  gods  of  earth  and  heaven.  The 
Assyrians  thought  likewise  of  their  god. 
"  Assur  was  supreme  over  all  other  gods," 
writes  Professor  Sayce,  "as  his  repre- 
sentative, the  Assyrian  king,  was  supreme 
over  the  other  kings  of  the  earth."  ^  In 
this  spirit  of  national  aggrandizement,  the 
proud  Israelite  would  say  ''  Oh,  magnify 
Yahweh  with  me;  and  let  us  exalt  his 
name  together."^  Another  would  ask: 
''  Who  is  like  unto  thee,  Yahweh,  among 
the  gods?"^  Another  would  declare: 
''Yahweh  is  god  of  gods!"«  While  still 
another  would  affirm:  "He  judgeth 
among  the  gods."^ 

'  Sayce,  Babylonians  and  Assyrians    (New   York, 
1900),  p.  256. 

^  Ps.  34:  3.  "  Deut.   10  :  17. 

'  Exod.    15  :  II.  'Ps.  82:  I. 


X 

THE  DECLINE  OF   ISRAEL 

Israel  was  a  united  kingdom  less  than 
a  hundred  years.  Upon  the  death  of 
Solomon,  about  931  B.  C,  a  dispute  arose 
concerning  the  subject  of  taxation.  As  a 
result,  the  kingdom  was  rent  in  twain. 
The  northern  part  —  lying  directly  in  the 
oriental  trade-routes,  and  containing  most 
of  the  wealthy  cities  —  broke  away  from 
the  southern  section,  which  was  more 
largely  agricultural  and  had  but  few  cities. 
During  the  following  century  (931-831 
B.  C.)  there  went  forward  a  concentration 
of  property  which,  under  one  form  or 
another,  has  been  reproduced  in  everv 
civilization  of  history.  The  great,  out- 
standing fact  is  that  the  country  folk  fell 
more  and  more  into  the  economic  grasp  of 
the  cities. 

During  the  period  of  the  united  king- 
dom the  land  outside  the  cities  was  held 
by  small  farmers,  whose  Israelite  ances- 
49 


50  EGOISM 

tors  had  wrested  it  from  the  Canaanites  a 
few  generations  before.  These  farmers, 
together  with  their  sons,  and  sometimes  a 
few  slaves,  worked  the  soil  with  their  own 
hands.^ 

In  time  of  war  the  wealthy  city  classes 
could  pay  for  substitutes,  and  meanwhile 
attend  to  their  own  business.  But  the 
small  farmer,  unable  to  produce  ready 
money,  and  spurred  on  by  fear  of  devasta- 
tion, was  compelled  to  exchange  the  im- 
plements of  peace  for  the  weapons  of  war. 
A  comparatively  short  campaign  would 
work  large  damage  to  agricultural  pro- 
prietors of  this  type.  Even  were  there  no 
wars,  other  conditions  made  equal  havoc. 
A  drouth,  such  as  not  infrequently  afflicts 
eastern  countries;  a  pest  of  insects;  a 
crop  failure  from  these  or  other  causes  — 
such  things  were  dreadful  realities. 

The  rural  proprietor,  overtaken  by  one 
or  all  of  these  evils,  and  finding  his  farm 
depleted,  would  frequently  borrow  from 

^  Examples  :  Gideon,  Judg.,  diap.  6  :  Kish,  the 
father  of  Saul,  i  Sam.,  chap.  9  ;  Jesse,  the  father  of 
David,  I  Sam.,  chap.  17;  Shaphat,  the  father  of 
Elisha,  I   Kings,  chap.   19. 


DECLINE  OF  ISRAEL  51 

some  wealthier  person  in  the  hope  of  Hft- 
ing  himself  out  of  his  troubles.  There 
were  always  richer  men  —  mostly  in  the 
cities  —  who  were  glad  to  advance  money 
or  goods  to  needy  farmers,  provided  their 
loans  wxre  secured  by  mortgages  upon 
farm  property. 

Slowly  but  surely,  as  the  years  passed, 
a  condition  arose  which  is  illustrated  by 
developments  after  the  return  from  the 
Babylonian  exile.  As  described  in  Nehe- 
miah,  the  people  of  that  later  time  say: 
**  We  are  mortgaging  our  fields,  our  vine- 
yards, and  our  houses.  Let  us  get  grain, 
because  of  the  dearth.  We  have  borrowed 
money  for  the  king's  tribute  upon  our 
fields  and  our  vineyards."  ^  So,  in  the 
earlier  period  that  we  are  now  consider- 
ing, the  farm  lands  of  Canaanitish  Israel 
were  gradually  mortgaged  to  the 
wealthier  classes,  which  centered  in  the 
cities. 

Loans  were  gladly  made,  and  gladly 
taken ;  but  they  were  not  so  easily  nor  so 
gladly  repaid.     A  new  war,  a  bad  season, 

'  Neh.  5  :  3,  4. 


52  EGOISM 

the  unequal  pressure  of  taxation  as  be- 
tween city  and  country,  left  the  farming 
class  as  badly  situated  as  before.  When 
it  became  evident  that  there  could  be  no 
general  redemption  of  mortgages,  the 
wealthy  classes  began  to  foreclose  wher- 
ever possible.  The  farmers  were  forced 
into  a  position  like  that  of  their  descend- 
ants, already  cited,  who  said  :  "  We  bring 
into  bondage  our  sons  and  our  daughters 
to  be  servants ;  neither  is  it  in  our  power 
to  help  it,  for  other  men  have  our  fields 
and  our  vineyards."  ^  Thus  the  rift  be- 
tween rich  and  poor,  between  city  and 
country,  widened  slowly  into  a  great 
chasm. 

To  the  backward  economic  sense  and 

'  Neh.,  loc.  cit ;  cf.  2  Kings.,  chap.  4.  for  specific 
case :  "  The  creditor  is  come  to  take  unto  him  my 
two  children  to  be  bondmen."  "  The  people  were 
crushed  by  oppressive  taxation,  as  well  as  by  private 
extortions.  They  were  doubtless  often  forced  to 
borrow  money  to  pay  the  taxes,  and  when  unable  to 
pay  the  interest,  lost  their  lands  by  foreclosure  " 
(Kirkpatrick,  Doctrine  of  the  Prophets  [London, 
1901],  p.  216).  "The  unhappy  Syrian  wars  sapped 
the  strength  of  the  country,  and  gradually  destroyed 
the  old  peasant  proprietors  "  ( \V.  R.  Smith,  Prophets 
of  Israel  [London,  1897],  p.  88).  Cf.  Paton,  Early 
History  of  Syria  and  Palestine  (New  York,  1901), 
p.   227. 


DECLINE  OF  ISRAEL  53 

primitive  ideas  of  the  Israelite  rustics, 
foreclosure  of  mortgages  was  a  crowning 
iniquity.  Debtor  and  creditor  alike  wor- 
shiped the  same  national  god,  and  were 
sons  of  that  god,  and  therefore  brothers 
to  each  other. ^  Thus  men  were  deprived 
of  their  ancestral  homes  by  their  own 
brothers. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  city  plutocrats 
took  a  different  view.  They  lived  in  a 
more  commercial,  modern  atmosphere 
They  and  their  ancestors  had  made  loans 
to  the  rustic  and  his  ancestors ;  and  these 
loans  were  a  just  claim  against  the  farm- 
ers' property.  While  the  city  creditor 
admitted  the  brotherhood  of  his  rural  con- 
temporary, he  denied  the  terms  in  which 
the  rustic  debtor  construed  that  brother- 
hood. 

After  all,  the  outcome  was  the  same 
whether  mortgages  were  foreclosed  or 
not.  If  they  were  not  foreclosed,  the 
farmer  had  to  pay  unceasing  interest  on 

*  Although  Yahweh  was  connected  with  Israel 
only  by  covenant,  he  was  thought  of  as  taking  the 
place  of  a  father,  and  was  referred  to  in  the  paternal 
character,   like   any   foster-father. 


54  EGOISM 

his  loan,  over  and  above  his  taxes  and 
Hving  expenses.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a 
mortgage  were  foreclosed,  the  farmer 
who  thus  lost  his  home  was  thereby  re- 
lieved of  interest  and  taxes ;  but  he  must 
now,  in  competition  with  poor  men  like 
himself,  either  hire  a  farm  at  a  rack-rent 
from  some  wealthy  landlord,  or  take  his 
place  among  poorly  paid  farm  laborers. 
In  any  event,  the  rural  population  as  a 
whole  would  be  brought  more  and  more 
under  the  economic  sway  of  the  wealthy 
classes,  which  centered  in  the  cities  of 
Canaanitish  Israel. 

If  it  were  unbrotherly  and  wicked  for  a 
city  creditor  to  foreclose  on  a  rustic 
debtor,  then,  by  the  same  reasoning,  it 
w^as  wrong  for  him  to  demand  interest  on 
loans,  or  to  charge  rent  for  country  prop- 
erty that  fell  into  his  hands,  or  to  do  any 
one  of  a  dozen  things  that  are  accounted 
right  and  honorable  in  a  commercial  so- 
ciety. The  case  between  country  and  city 
was  noL  a  case  between  persons,  but  be- 
tween different  social  standpoints.  The 
country    had    one    standpoint,    which    it 


DECLINE  OF  ISRAEL  55 

identified  with  justice  and  righteousness. 
The  city  had  another  point  of  view,  which 
it  held  to  be  equally  right.^ 

^  The  Old  Testament  laws  against  holding-  the 
lands  of  another  family  over  a  certain  period  ; 
against  interest  (translated  "usury"  in  A.  V.,  but 
"interest"  in  R.  V.);  and  against  Israelites  hold- 
ing persons  of  their  own  nation  in  perpetual  servi- 
tude—  all  this  legislation  was  practically  a  dead 
letter.  It  is,  indeed,  ex  post  facto,  recording  the 
desire  of  the  rural  party,  and  standing  as  negative 
evidence  of  conditions  that  actually  prevailed.  That 
is  to  say,  lands  were  not  returned  by  creditors  ;  in- 
terest was  charged  ;    and  slaves  zcere  held. 


XI 
THE  REVOLUTION 

As  this  condition  developed,  there  grew 
up  along  with  it  an  ever  brighter  tradi- 
tion of  a  golden  age  under  David  and 
Solomon.  The  glory  and  happiness  of 
that  earlier  time  were  made  to  stand  out 
in  bold  contrast  with  the  shame  and  mis- 
ery of  the  evil  days  upon  which  men  were 
now  falling.  Clear  marks  of  this  tradi- 
tion are  found  in  the  work  of  a  writer  who 
lived  in  the  midst  of  the  later  age  of 
trouble.  "Judah  and  Israel,"  he  says, 
"  were  many  as  the  sand  which  is  by  the 
sea  in  multitude,  eating  and  drinking  and 
making  merry.  And  Judah  and  Israel 
dwelt  safely,  every  man  under  his  vine 
and  under  his  fig  tree,  from  Dan  even  to 
Beersheba."  ^  This  passage  is  valuable  as 
an  item  in  the  mass  of  evidence  pointing 
to  concentration  of  landed  property  in 
Israel.     When  it  tells  us  that  every  man 

^  1  Kings  4  :  20,  25. 

56 


THE  REVOLUTION  57 

dwelt  under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree,  it 
tells  us,  in  a  roundabout  way,  that  in  the 
earlier  time  every  man  lived  on  his  own 
land,  in  contrast  with  the  later  age  in 
which  fewer  men  occupied  their  own 
farms.  In  testimony  to  the  same  fact,  the 
prophet  Micah,  instead  of  looking  back- 
ward, anticipates  a  better  era  when  ''  they 
shall  sit  every  man  under  his  vine  and 
under  his  fig  tree."^  Both  writers  give 
indirect  proof  of  the  same  condition. 
Micah,  indeed,  states  the  case  directly. 
"Woe  to  them  that  devise  iniquity!"  he 
exclaims.  "  They  covet  fields  and  seize 
them,  and  houses  and  take  them  away; 
and  they  oppress  a  man  and  his  family, 
even  a  man  and  his  heritage."  ^ 

A  dramatic  and  futile  social  movement 
now  comes  gradually  into  view. 

In  ancient  theology  the  troubles  of  a 
people  were  always  ascribed  to  the  ill-will 
of  the  gods.     On  the  famous  "  Moabite 

^  Mic.  4  :  4. 

^  Mic.  2:  I,  2;  cf.  Isa.  5:8.  These  passages  are, 
of  course,  later  than  the  period  here  under  view  ; 
but  they  may  be  usefully  considered  at  this  point  in 
connection  with  the  other  evidence. 


58  EGOISM 

Stone ''  King  Mesha  says  :  "  Omri,  king 
of  Israel,  afflicted  Moab  for  many  days." 
The  reason  for  this  affliction  was  ''  because 
Chemosh  (the  god  of  Moab)  was  angry 
with  his  land."  ^  The  malice  of  the  gods 
was  thought  to  be  due  either  to  some  mis- 
take in  the  ritual,  or  to  some  unwitting 
error  in  the  conduct  of  their  worshipers. 
Extraordinary  sacrifices  were  offered  up 
in  the  hope  of  winning  back  their  favor. 
Thus,  during  a  battle  between  Israel  and 
Moab  which  seemed  to  be  going  against 
the  latter,  ''the  king  of  Moab  took  his 
eldest  son  that  should  have  reigned  in  his 
stead,  and  offered  him  for  a  burnt-offering 
upon  the  wall."  The  biblical  writer  here 
quoted  evidently  has  the  same  theological 
ideas  as  the  Moabites,  for  he  goes  on  to 
say  that  ''  there  came  great  wrath  upon 
Israel:  and  they  returned  to  their  own 
land."^ 

In  trying  to  cure  their  troubles,  the 
people  of  Israel  divided  into  two  parties 
on  the  standing  ground  of  these  primitive 

*  Encyclopedia  Biblica  (New  York,   1902),  double 
column  3045,  3046. 
°  2  Kings  3  :  27. 


THE  REVOLUTION  59 

theological  ideas.  The  parties,  although 
at  first  separated  only  by  slight  differ- 
ences, at  length  diverged  sharply  in  their 
essential  positions. 

The  first  party  centered  among  the  city 
plutocrats,  into  whose  hands  the  property 
of  Israel  was  gradually  falling.  They 
admitted  that  Israel's  condition  was  in 
some  respects  worse  than  it  had  been 
under  David  and  Solomon.  The  king- 
dom was  divided;  there  had  been  drouth 
and  suffering;  and  their  armies  had  met 
with  defeat.  These  troubles  were  evi- 
dently due  to  the  fact  that  Yahweh  was 
angry  with  his  people  for  some  cause  that 
they  could  not  fathom.  Perhaps  they  had 
not  been  assiduous  enough  in  the  sacrifice. 
There  may  have  been  some  mistake  in  the 
ancient  ritual.  Possibly  their  troubles 
could  be  remedied  by  bringing  more  and 
better  sacrifices  to  the  altars  of  Yahweh. 
The  attitude  of  this  party  is  indicated  in  a 
few  words  by  Micah,  the  Morashtite,  in 
his  book,  written  in  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ.  He  brings  before  us  an 
adherent  of  the  plutocratic,  city  party,  who 


6o  EGOISM 

asks :  "  With  what  shall  I  come  before 
Yahweh?  Shall  I  come  before  him  with 
burnt-offerings,  with  calves  a  year  old? 
Will  Yahweh  be  pleased  with  thousands 
of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of 
oil?  Shall  I  sacrifice  my  first-born  child 
for  my  mistakes?"^  Micah's  man  here 
stands  as  a  type  of  his  class,  which  has 
nothing  to  suggest  but  a  purely  ritualistic 
program,  culminating  in  precisely  that 
measure  to  which  the  Moabite  king  re- 
sorted as  a  remedy  for  the  troubles  of  his 
people  —  human  sacrifice. 

While  the  party  just  described  centered 
in  the  cities,  the  other  centered  in  the 
rural  districts.  The  earliest  platform  of 
the  rural  party  was  as  follows :  Israel's 
troubles  are  not  the  result  of  obscure  mis- 
takes in  worship ;  they  are  the  issue  of  a 
perfectly  plain,  unmistakable  cause.  Yah- 
weh cJwse  Israel  out  of  all  the  peoples  of 
the  earth,  and  raised  his  elect  from 
nothing  to  royal  estate.  Israel  ought  to 
serve  him  in  preference  to  other  gods  in 

«  Mic.  6  :  6,  7. 


THE  REVOLUTION  6i 

the  same  whole-hearted  way  that  he  has 
served  them  in  preference  to  other  peoples. 
But   Israel   has   given   only   half-hearted 
allegiance  to  Yahweh,  and  has  mixed  his 
worship  with  the  service  of  the  Baalim, 
the  gods  of  the  Canaanites,  the  former  in- 
habitants of  the  land  !    Not  only  this ;  but 
Israel  has  raised  altars  and  built  temples 
to  the  gods  of  foreign  nations  in  the  very 
land    that    Yahweh    so    graciously    con- 
quered for  his  chosen  people!     Israel  has 
been  tried  in  the  balances  by  a  good  god, 
and  found  wanting.     Yahweh  has  shown, 
by  what  he  has  actually  done  for  Israel, 
that  he   is  both   willing  and  able  to  be 
faithful  to  his  side  of  the  covenant  rela- 
tion;   and  the  troubles  of  the  nation  are 
the  just  punishment,  whereby  Yahweh  is 
chastising  them  for  serving  other  gods. 
If   Israel   would   once   more   have   good 
things  and  be  happy,  let  them  put  away 
all  other  gods   from  before  the   face  of 
Yahweh,  for  he  is  a  jealous  god;  and  let 
them  return  and  serve  him  only;   and  he 
will  abundantly  pardon.    The  program  of 


62  EGOISM 

the  rural  districts,  therefore,  was  :  Down 
with  all  gods  but  Yahweh ! ' 

The  country  party  made  use  of  the 
covenant  idea;  but  the  city  party  ignored 
the  covenant,  and  treated  the  god  of  Is- 
rael as  if  he  were  a  nature-god,  who  had 
grown  up  with  his  people  on  the  basis  of 
blood-relationship.  To  the  latter  the 
program  of  their  opponents  was  foolish- 
ness. 

The  views  of  the  rustic  party  were 
crystallized  out  of  the  indefinite  social  fer- 
ment of  the  time  by  the  policy  of  King 
Ahab,  of  the  northern  Israelite  kingdom. 
Ahab  married  Jezebel,  daughter  of  Eth- 
baal,  king  of  the  Phcenician  city  of  Tyre ; 
and  brought  his  foreign  wife  to  his  capital, 

^  These  propositions  of  the  country  party  form 
the  backbone  of  the  "  Book  of  the  Covenant,"  pro- 
duced some  time  before  the  period  of  Josiah  (2 
Kings,  chaps.  22,  23).  This  work  was  later  expanded 
into  our  present  book  of  Deuteronomy,  which  is  pre- 
eminently the  Book  of  the  Covenant.  The  idea  of 
material  good  and  evil,  as  resulting  from  service  of 
Yahweh  and  other  gods  respectively,  is  dwelt  upon 
at  length  in  the  later  production.  The  good  is  there 
symbolized  by  Mount  Gerizim  ;  the  evil,  by  Mount 
Ebal  (Deut.  11:26-29).  A  more  primitive  "Cove- 
nant Book "  along  these  lines  is  found  in  Exod., 
chaps.  21-23,  34- 


THE  REVOLUTION  63 

the  city  of  Samaria.  In  honor  of  his 
wife's  people,  he  erected  a  temple  in 
Samaria  to  the  Baal  of  Tyre.  In  building 
this  temple,  Ahab  intended  no  disloyalty 
to  Yahweh.  He  was  only  doing  what  the 
older  theological  ideas  held  tO'  be  the  right 
thing.  Besides,  he  had  a  precedent  in  the 
case  of  a  great  Yahweh-man,  Solomon, 
who  had  married  many  foreign  wives, 
and  erected  several  temples  in  honor  of 
their  gods.  That  Ahab  recognized  Yah- 
weh as  god  of  Israel  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  children  born  to  him  were  given 
names  compounded  with  that  of  Yahweh,^ 
and  also  by  the  fact  that  he  consulted 
many  of  the  prophets,  or  spokesmen,  of 
the  national  god.^ 

There  now  appeared  the  first  great 
champion  of  the  rural  party.  He  came, 
not  from  the  cities,  but  from  the  country. 
The  biblical  narrative  introduces  him 
abruptly  as  among  the  inhabitants,  or  so- 
journers, of  Gilead  —  an  agricultural  dis- 
trict in  the  northeast  of  Israel. ^*^  Probably 

^  I  Kings  22:51  ;    2  Kings  3:1. 

'  I  Kings  22  :  6  f.  "  i  Kings  17:1. 


64  EGOISM 

the  world  does  not  know  the  real  narhe  of 
this  man;  but  history  knows  him  by  a 
theophoric  name  which  describes  his 
work,  and  by  which  he  will  always  be 
remembered.  He  preached  that  the  god 
{El)  whom  Israel  ought  to  worship  was 
Yahweh.  Hence  the  name  El-Yah, 
Eliyah,  or  Elijah,  by  which  this  man  is 
known. 

The  most  dramatic  event  in  Elijah's 
career  centered  about  the  very  problem 
which  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  reaction  of 
country  against  city.  Through  false  wit- 
ness and  murder,  King  Ahab  came  into 
possession  of  land  belonging  to  a  certain 
Israelite  whose  name  was  Naboth.  The 
incident  gave  Elijah  an  opportunity  which 
he  was  quick  to  improve.  Boldly  making 
his  way  into  the  royal  presence,  he  con- 
fronted the  king  with  an  awful  curse. 

It  is  very  important  to  point  out  that 
the  significance  of  this  case  lies,  not  in 
the  wicked  manner  by  which  Naboth  was 
dispossessed,  but  in  the  simple  fact  that  he 
Avas  dispossessed.  The  Israelite  farmers 
were  economically  so  backward  that  they 


THE  REVOLUTION  65 

made  no  distinction  between  treacherously 
seizing  an  estate,  as  Ahab  did,  and  fore- 
closing a  mortgage  on  landed  property. 
The  one  was  just  as  bad  as  the  other :  the 
two  were  morally  the  same  —  so  the  rus- 
tic party  held.^^  Not  only  was  foreclosure 
wicked,  but  it  was  wicked  to  charge  inter- 
est on  the  loans  that  were  secured  by 
mortgage.  The  Ahab-Naboth  case,  in- 
volving the  passage  of  land  from  one  of 
the  smaller  to  one  of  the  wealthier  Israel- 
ites, throws  out  into  bold  relief,  as  by  a 
lightning  flash,  the  silent  process  of  eco- 
nomic concentration  which  w^e  have  been 
emphasizing.  It  is  for  this  reason,  and 
not  because  Ahab  connived  in  the  murder, 
that  the  incident  is  given  such  prominence 
in  the  Bible.  To  the  confused,  ignorant, 
and  excited  farmer  folk  this  case  typified 
the  entire  contemporary  process  of  land 
concentration. 

Some  time  before  his  death,  Elijah 
formally  designated  as  his  associate  and 
successor    Elisha,    the    son    of    Shaphat. 

"  Cf.  Kirkpatrick,  Doctrine  of  the  Prophets  (Lon- 
don, 1901),  pp.  225  f. 


66  EGOISM 

Elisha,  also,  came  from  the  rural  districts. 
When  called  by  Elijah,  he  was  plowing 
behind  twelve  yoke  of  oxen.^^  His  family 
was  located  at  Abelmeholah,  an  agricul- 
tural village  in  Gilead.^^ 

The  movement  of  the  country  party  did 
not  come  to  a  practical  issue  until  after 
the  death  of  Elijah.  In  the  time  of  his 
successor,  Elisha,  there  occurred  a  start- 
ling revolution.  The  organization  of  the 
rustic  party  seems  to  have  centered  at  this 
time  in  Gilead.  It  was  thence  that  Elijah 
and  Elisha  came;  and  the  last-named 
prophet  himself  now  sent  to  Ramoth  of 
Gilead  for  an  Israelite  of  honorable  an- 
cestry, Jehu  by  name,  to  "  rise  up  from 
among  his  brethren,"  and  become  the 
leader  of  the  rural  party  in  the  field  of 
politics.^ ^  The  object  of  the  farmers  was 
big  and  bold.  They  aimed  to  capture  the 
government  of  Israel,  which,  lor  over  a 
century,  had  been  controlled  by  the  cities. 
And  since  there  was  no  constitutional 
channel    through     which     party    politics 

"  I  Kings  19  :  19. 

"i   Kings,   19:  16,  "2  Kings,  chap.  9. 


THE  REVOLUTION  67 

could  find  expression,  the  leaders  of  the 
farmers  resolved  on  the  murder  of  the 
city  leaders.  Jehu  killed  the  reigning 
kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,  wiped  out  the 
entire  family  of  Ahab  in  the  city  of 
Samaria,  brought  his  murders  to  a  cli- 
max by  a  wholesale  slaughter  of  wor- 
shipers in  the  temple  of  Tyrian  Baal,  and 
then  mounted  the  throne  as  an  ardent 
Yahweh-man. 

This  was  the  balm  that  flowed  out  upon 
Israel  from  the  land  of  Gilead  —  that 
primitive,  rustic  land,  where  the  goats  lay 
along  the  mountain  side,^^  where  people 
and  flock  fed  in  the  ancient  days,^*^  and 
where  Yahweh  would  yet  again  bring 
Israel  to  the  sheep-fold  and  the  hills. ^^  It 
was  this  land,  where  the  Israelites  longest 
retained  their  early  simplicity,  that  sup- 
plied the  first  agitators  and  leaders  in  the 
movement  of  country  against  city. 

At  this  interesting  point  in  the  history, 
the  Kenites,  from  whom  Israel  derived  its 
Yahweh-worship,   come   into   momentary 

^^  Song  of  Solomon,  4:1. 

^^Mic.  7  :  14.  "  Jer.  50:  19. 


68  EGOISM 

view.  There  is  a  striking  passage  in 
Kings,  whose  meaning,  Hke  that  of  so 
many  Bible  facts,  is  lost  to  those  who  read 
our  sacred  literature  from  the  conven- 
tional standpoint.  The  passage  referred 
to  seems  to  interrupt  the  connection  of  the 
narrative.  It  is  merely  a  notice  to  the 
effect  that  Jehu,  in  the  midst  of  his  bloody 
work,  called  upon  a  certain  Jehonadab, 
the  son  of  Rechab,  to  w^itness  his  "  zeal " 
for  Yahweh ;  and  we  are  further  told  that 
this  son  of  Rechab  was  present  when  Jehu 
slaughtered  the  devotees  in  the  temple  of 
Baal,  and  destroyed  the  worship  of  Baal 
from  Israel. ^^ 

The  context  supplies  no  hint  about  the 
identity  of  Jehonadab,  nor  why  he  should 
be  given  this  peculiar  prominence  in  the 
narrative.  But  in  two  other  Old  Testa- 
ment passages  we  find  material  that  solves 
the  problem  and  puts  the  incident  in  its 
true  relation  to  history.  From  a  genea- 
logical list  in  Chronicles  we  learn  that 
Rechab,  the  father  of  Jehonadab,  was  a 
Kenite.^^     In  the  thirty-fifth  chapter  of 

"2  Kings,  10:  15-28.        ^^  I   Chron.  2:55. 


THE  REVOLUTION  69 

Jeremiah  we  see  the  Rechabite  descend- 
ants of  Jehonadab  seeking  temporary 
safety  in  Jerusalem  in  time  of  war.  Their 
Hfe,  they  say,  is  that  of  tent-dwellers  and 
shepherds.  The  whole  situation  is  now 
clear:  The  son  of  Rechab  has  a  name 
compounded  with  that  of  the  god  of  Is- 
rael, "  Yah-nadab."  His  enthusiasm  for 
Yahweh  comes  from  two  sources  —  his 
afiinity  with  the  rural  districts,  and  his 
Kenite  blood.  He  was  a  rustic  house- 
father in  Israel,  and  a  strong  man  in  the 
anti-Baal,  pro- Yahweh  party.  When 
Jehu,  the  political  head  of  the  farmers' 
movement,  called  upon  this  man  to  wit- 
ness his  "zeal"  for  Yahweh,  he  knew 
that  Jehonadab  represented  an  important 
area  of  discontent  and  revolution.  The 
handclasp  of  the  two  men,  as  Jehonadab 
mounted  into  the  chariot  of  Jehu,  s^'gni- 
fied,  according  to  Israelite  custom,  that 
they  were  partners  in  the  extermination 
of  Baalism. 

Thus  we  behold  the  political  triumph 
of  the  rural  party  over  the  city  party. 
Yahweh  was  now  expected  to  smile  upon 


70  EGOISM 

his  people,  and  bring  in  again  the  golden 
age  when  every  man  should  dwell  safely 
under  his  vine  and  fig  tree.  And  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  country  folk 
wanted  King  Jehu  to  proclaim  laws 
against  foreclosure  of  land  mortgages  at 
the  will  of  the  creditor,  and  against  col- 
lection of  interest  on  debts  that  were  se- 
cured by  such  mortgages. 


XII 
THE    REVOLUTION    (continuedy 

The  fundamental  fact  calling  for  em- 
phasis here  is  the  concentration  of  landed 
property,  which  took  place  in  Israel  as  it 
has  in  all  nations.  If  it  can  be  shown, 
either  that  there  was  no  concentration,  or 
that,  in  the  event  of  its  occurrence,  the 
rural  classes  did  not  lose  to  the  urban 
property-holders,  our  claim  falls  to  the 
ground.  That  the  general  fact  of  con- 
centration is  present  in  the  history  no  one 
can  deny.  And  as  the  entire  situation  be- 
comes clear,  it  will  be  seen  to  be  a  hopeless 
undertaking  to  show  that  this  economic 
movement  did  not  take  the  general  direc- 
tion here  indicated. 

From  this  point  we  move  to  the  next 
proposition  :  When  the  ownership  of  land 
began  to  center  in  the  cities,  the  resulting 

^This  chapter  was  written  after  the  book  had  been 
provisionally  completed;  and  it  is  inserted  here  in 
reply  to  criticism,  as  a  restatement  of  the  thesis  up 
to  this  point. 

71 


72  EGOISM 

reaction  of  country  against  city  found  ex- 
pression in  the  protest  of  Yahwism,  the 
cult  whose  tradition  was  strongest  in  the 
rural  parts,  against  Baalism,  whose  cults 
were  at  that  time  strongest  in  the  cities. 
Let  it  be  observed  incidentally  that  we  do 
not  posit  the  rural-urban  reaction  as  ex- 
hausting the  Yahweh  movement,  but  only 
as  initiating  it.  At  a  later  stage,  to  be 
treated  in  the  following  chapter,  the 
movement  was  emancipated  from  this,  its 
original,  form;  and  the  cult-rivalry,  Yah- 
weh versus  Baal,  came  to  symbolize,  not 
merely  rustic  right  against  city  wrong, 
but  good  in  general  against  bad  in  general. 
Had  the  movement  failed  to  advance  be- 
yond the  stage  represented  by  Elijah  and 
Elisha,  it  w^ould  not  have  been  a  fact  of 
universal  significance. 

In  order  to  demonstrate  the  initial  de- 
pendence of  Yahwism  upon  the  rural- 
urban  reaction,  we  conceive  it  to  be  neces- 
sary to  establish  the  following  positions : 
(i)  After  the  settlement  of  Israel  in 
Canaan,  the  Baal  cults,  although  ac- 
knowledged in  the  rural  districts  among 


THE  REVOLUTION  y^ 

Canaanites  and  Israelites,  came  to  a  cen- 
ter in  the  Canaanite  cities  that  survived 
the  invasion.  (2)  At  the  same  time- 
Yahwism  was,  for  a  long  period,  almost 
exclusively  a  rural  cult.  It  flourished 
more  in  the  country  than  in  the  cities. 
That  there  was  a  Yahweh-Baal  conflict 
everybody  knows.  That  it  was  originally 
involved  in  the  rural-urban  reaction  is 
here  claimed.  In  order  to  break  this 
claim,  it  will  be  necessary  to  show  that  the 
positions  just  indicated  cannot  be  estab- 
lished. Our  business  now  is  to  sketch  the 
situation  pointing  to  them  as  facts. 

We  cannot  too  strongly  impress  upon 
ourselves  that  long  before  the  Israelite 
invasion  city  life  was  well  developed  in 
Canaan.  Agriculture,  of  course,  occupied 
a  large  part  —  perhaps  the  larger  part  — 
of  society;  but  superimposed  upon  the 
simpler  industry  of  the  open  country  were 
the  manufacturing  and  commercial  pur- 
suits of  the  cities.  In  the  famous  Tell-el- 
Amarna  letters  we  have  documents  writ- 
ten from  Canaanite  cities  to  Egypt  in  the 
Babylonian  tongue.     These  letters  reflect 


74  EGOISM 

the  general  situation.  Canaan  lay  at  the 
focal  point  of  the  ancient  oriental  world. 
Here  met  the  civilizations  of  surrounding 
countries,  connected  by  the  trade-routes 
that  ran  through  the  land  as  great  inter- 
national highways.  The  important  Ca- 
naanite  cities  lay  on  these  trade-routes, 
and  were  largely  developed  upon  the  com- 
merce whose  tides  flowed  through  them. 
That  is  to  say,  they  represented  more  than 
the  local  trading  life,  and  occupied  a  cos- 
mopolitan position. 

Now,  previous  to  the  Israelite  invasion, 
this  important  area  of  the  ancient  world 
was  not  united  under  a  single  native  gov- 
ernment. It  was  ruled  by  local  ''  kings  "  ; 
and  its  religions  were  local  cults.  Canaan 
was  divided  into  many  districts,  each  one 
having  its  own  god,  or  divine  proprietor, 
known  as  ''the  Baal."  The  Baals  —  or 
Baalim,  as  they  are  called  in  the  Hebrew 
plural  —  were  supposed  to  preside  over 
all  aspects  and  activities  of  life.  Although 
the  Baalim  were  worshiped  in  city  and 
country,  their  cults  naturally  centered  in 
the   cities,   because   here   the   life  of  the 


THE  REVOLUTION  75 

people  came  to  a  center.  Here  were  the 
great  markets,  frequented  alike  by  traders 
from  other  lands  and  by  native  buyers  and 
sellers.  Here  were  the  seats  of  the  local 
rulers.  Here,  therefore,  were  the  most 
famous  Baal  shrines.  ''  The  proper  site 
for  an  ancient  shrine,"  observes  Dr.  G.  A. 
Smith,  ''was  nearly  always  a  market."^ 
And  cities  grew  around  markets.  In 
maintaining  that  Canaanite  Baalism  cen- 
tered in  the  cities,  we  are  not  claiming 
that  Canaan  was  exceptional.  It  was  in 
the  cities  of  all  the  ancient  nations,  and 
not  in  the  country  districts,  that  their  cults 
came  to  a  focus;  and  the  religious  life  of 
Canaan  conformed  in  this  respect  to  the 
practice  of  all  history,  including  Chris- 
tianity, whose  great  temples  have  always 
been  in  the  cities. 

Bearing  these  points  in  mind,  we  turn 
again  to  the  Israelite  invasion.  The  ac- 
count in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges  recog- 
nizes that  the  Canaanite  cities  about 
which  we  have  been  speaking  were  al- 

^  G.  A.  Smith,  Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets 
(New  York),  Vol.  I,  p.  36;  cf.  H.  P.  Smith,  Old 
Testament  History   (New  York,  1903),  pp.   172,   173. 


76  EGOISM 

ready  in  existence,  and  that  they  were  of 
sufficient  size  and  importance  to  have 
strong  walls.  The  first  chapter  of  Judges 
gives  a  list  of  twenty  widely  distributed 
cities  which  the  Israelites  were  unable  to 
reduce.  And  that  this  list,  extensive  as  it 
is,  does  not  exhaust  the  situation  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  cities  of  Gibeon  and 
Shechem,  not  here  mentioned,  were  in- 
habited by  thriving  Canaanite  populations 
many  years  later.  These  widely  spread 
centers  of  Baal-worship,  then,  lay  in  the 
midst  of  the  Israelites,  who  held  only 
parts  of  the  open  country. 

The  inroads  of  Israel  upon  the  agri- 
cultural districts  had  thus  two  marked 
effects  at  the  very  outset  of  their  occupa- 
tion of  Canaan :  Baalism,  already  cen- 
tering in  the  cities,  was  identified  there- 
w^ith  rather  more,  if  anything,  than  less; 
while  Yahwism,  representing  the  Israelite 
invaders,  was  for  a  long  time  (down  to 
the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  B.  C.) 
predominantly  identified  with  a  rural 
population.  In  other  words,  the  social 
situation  itself,  on  the  basis  of  the  hostility 


THE  REVOLUTION  77 

engendered  by  the  invasion,  set  up  at  the 
start  an  antithesis  between  the  older  Baal 
cults  and  the  newer  cult  of  Yahweh. 

To  study  the  Old  Testament  with  care 
is  to  see  that  the  narrative  is  at  first  con- 
trolled by  the  rural  interest.  It  is  rustic 
life,  either  in  its  pastoral  or  its  agricul- 
tural form,  that  marks  the  main  stream 
of  the  history  all  through  the  judges 
period,  and  well  onward  into  the  time  of 
the  kingdom.  The  reason  for  this  is  not 
that  there  are  no  great  cities.  It  is  that 
city  life  is  as  yet  mainly  controlled  by  the 
alien  Canaanites,  who  are  but  slowly  ad- 
justed to  the  newcomers,  and  who,  there- 
fore, get  scanty  recognition  in  the  narra- 
tive. 

Let  us  look  at  these  facts  more  closely. 
All  the  great  outstanding  characters  of 
the  judges  period  are  people  of  the  open 
country.  Whenever  the  narrative  drops 
into  detail,  it  is  rustic  life  that  we  see 
before  us.  Othniel,  Ehud,  Deborah, 
Barak,  Heber  the  Kenite,  Gideon,  Jeph- 
thah,  Samson,  Micah  the  Ephraimite, 
the  two  Levites  of  Ephraim  —  these  are 


78  EGOISM 

all  rustic  folk;  and  it  is  about  these  people 
that  the  history  of  the  time  revolves.  In 
connection  with  them  we  hear  about  live 
stock,  and  agriculture,  and  vineyards,  and 
threshing-floors,  and  wine-presses.  Over 
and  over  again  we  hear  of  "  the  hill  coun- 
try of  Ephraim."  The  region  thus  indi- 
cated was  an  agricultural  district  in  which 
lay  the  homes  of  many  of  the  famous 
characters.  There  were,  as  already  noted, 
a  few  Israelite  cities  in  these  earlier  times, 
like  Bethel  and  Shiloh,  Succoth  and 
Penuel;  but  the  existence  of  these  cities, 
which  lay  in  the  agricultural  districts  of 
Ephraim  and  Gilead,  is  not  contrar}^  to 
the  present  thesis.  They  were  peopled  by 
Israelites,  and  probably  removed,  for  the 
time  being,  from  extensive  Canaanite  in- 
fluence. 

In  the  book  of  Samuel,  w^hich  continues 
the  narrative  begun  in  Judges,  we  come 
again  into  the  hill  country  of  Ephraim, 
the  homeland  of  the  famous  prophet- 
judge.  The  father  of  Samuel  makes  a 
yearly  visit  to  Shiloh,  going  up,  as  we  are 
told,  ''  from  his  city."     Like  many  places 


THE  REVOLUTION  79 

to  which  the  term  rendered  *'city"  is  ap- 
pHed,  Ramah,  the  home  of  Samuel's 
family,  was  evidently  an  agricultural  vil- 
lage.^ The  offerings  which  Elkanah  and 
Hannah  bring  up  to  the  house  of  Yahweh 
at  Shiloh  are  flour,  wine,  and  a  bullock. 
Saul,  the  next  notable  character  in  the 
narrative,  was  born  of  an  agricultural 
family  in  Benjamin,  to  the  south  of 
Ephraim.  He  is  introduced  as  he  goes  in 
search  of  the  lost  asses  of  Kish,  his  father. 
At  the  time  of  the  Ammonite  attack  on 
the  Israelites  in  Gilead,  Saul  comes  fol- 
lowing the  oxen  from  the  field.  He  hears 
the  news,  cuts  a  yoke  of  the  animals  in 
pieces,  and  sends  the  bloody  fragments 
broadcast  ''throughout  all  the  borders  of 
Israel."  The  extent  of  Saul's  legal  au- 
thority is  a  matter  of  no  interest  here 
beside  the  fact  that  he  is  a  rustic  dealing 
with  a  rustic  population;  for  he  declares 
that  ''whosoever  comes  not  forth  after 
Saul  and  after  Samuel,  so  shall  it  be  done 

'  The  term  rendered  "  city  "  does  not  always 
denote  a  large,  walled  center.  It  is  often  applied  to 
rustic  villages,  as  in  i  Sam.  6:  18,  which  speaks  of 
"  the  cities  of  the  Philistines,  both  of  fortified  cities 
and  of  country  villages." 


8o  EGOISM 

to  his  oxen/'  And  as  with  Saul,  so  with 
David,  the  next  important  character  in  the 
narrative.  David's  family  seat  was  in  or 
near  the  "city"  of  Bethlehem  in  Judah. 
This  place,  like  Ramah,  was  evidently 
another  country  village.  David  is  intro- 
duced as  a  boy,  tending  the  sheep  of  his 
father  Jesse.  Jesse's  gifts  to  King  Saul 
are  those  of  a  rustic :  an  ass  laden  with 
bread,  a  skin  of  wine,  and  a  kid.  David 
marries  not  only  the  daughter  of  the  agri- 
culturist Saul,  but,  at  a  later  time,  the 
widow  of  Nabal,  a  very  wealthy  sheep- 
master  and  goatherd. 

But  now  a  change  comes  over  the  his- 
tory. David  is  elected  king  of  Judah,  and 
occupies  the  city  of  Hebron  as  his  capital. 
Later  chosen  king  of  all  Israel,  he  under- 
takes to  remove  his  headquarters  to 
another  city.  The  place  in  question  had 
been  attacked  by  Israel  at  the  time  of  their 
invasion  of  the  land  over  two  hundred 
years  before ;  and  it  had  remained  Canaan- 
ite  down  to  this  period.  Its  name  was 
Yerushalim  (Jerusalem)  ;  and  it  is  several 
times  called  lebus,  from  the  Canaanitish 


THE  REVOLUTION  8i 

Tebusites  who  dwelt  in  and  around  it. 
The  fort  of  Jerusalem  was  captured  and 
occupied  by  the  king,  who  called  it  "the 
city  of  David."  We  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  capture  of  the  fort  was 
attended  by  extermination  of  the  Canaan- 
ites  of  Jerusalem.  On  the  contrary,  we 
have  every  ground  for  assuming  that  the 
loss  of  life  was  merely  that  contingent 
upon  the  siege  and  capture  of  the  place. 
At  a  later  time  we  find  David  purchasing 
from  Araunah  the  Jebusite  the  land 
whereon  was  raised  the  famous  temple  of 
Solomon.  The  family  of  Araunah  the 
Jebusite,  then,  had  remained  in  possession 
of  their  property.  Probably  the  situation 
here  suggested,  of  Israelites  and  Canaan- 
ites  living  peacefully  together,  is  reflected 
by  the  passage  which  states  that  "as  for 
the  Jebusites,  the  inhabitants  of  Jeru- 
salem, the  children  of  Judah  could  not 
drive  them  out;  but  the  Jebusites  dwell 
with  the  children  of  Judah  at  Jerusa- 
lem." ^ 

With  David  the  rustic  tradition  passes 

*Josh.  15  :  63. 


82  EGOISM 

away.  Solomon,  the  next  king,  was  a  city 
man,  as  were  all  the  following  rulers. 
Both  he  and  his  father  came  into  friendly 
relations  with  Hiram,  king  of  the  great 
and  famous  Canaanite  city  of  Tyre.  Thus 
we  see  that,  with  the  rise  of  the  royal 
house  of  David,  Israel  is  coming  into 
closer  association  with  the  original  city 
life  of  Canaan.  Before  the  time  of  David 
the  prominent  characters  in  Israelite  his- 
tory come  from  the  country;  but  after 
that  time  the  absence  of  great  rustic  men 
from  the  history  is  as  noticeable  as  their 
earlier  prominence.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
period  after  David  we  have  to  reckon  with 
such  rural  men  as  Elijah,  and  Elisha,  and 
Amos;  but  these  form  a  notable  excep- 
tion which  proves  the  rule,  for  they  arise 
in  the  country  to  protest  against  the  city. 
We  have  now  reached  a  point  where  it 
is  possible  effectively  to  show  the  condi- 
tions under  which  Canaanite  Baalism  be- 
came a  factor  of  increasing  prominence  in 
Israel's  religious  life.  The  cities  of  the 
land,  as  already  pointed  out,  were  great 
centers  of  Baal-worship  long  before  the 


THE  REVOLUTION  83 

invasion;  and  it  was  precisely  these  Baal 
centers  which  the  Israelites  were  unable 
to  reduce.  The  first  chapter  of  Judges 
mentions  about  twenty  such  places,  not 
merely  in  one  locality,  but  widely  dis- 
tributed from  north  to  south.  The  largest 
and  most  important  were  Ibleam,  Taa- 
nach,  Bethshean,  Megiddo,  Nahalol,  Re- 
hob,  Beth-horon,  Gezer,  Shaalbim,  Dor, 
Aijalon,  Gibeon,  Shechem,  and  Jerusalem. 
Surviving  the  invasion,  most  of  them  re- 
appear at  later  points  in  the  narrative. 
The  Canaanite  populations  which  lived  in 
and  near  these  places,  and  which  were 
slowly  amalgamated  with  Israel,  were  the 
main  force  perpetuating  the  Baal  cults; 
while  after  the  union  of  country  and  city 
under  the  house  of  David  the  old  Canaan- 
ite centers,  now  Israelite  in  name,  and 
partly  so  in  blood  through  intermarriage, 
naturally  acted  as  points  of  diffusion 
whence  Baalism  spread  to  the  newer 
Israelite  cities,  like  Ophrah,  Bethel,  etc. 

Adoption  of  the  Baal-cult  of  another 
city  is  seen  in  the  case  of  Solomon,  who 
married  foreign  wives  and  built  temples 


84  EGOISM 

in  Jerusalem  for  their  gods;  and  in  the 
case  of  Ahab,  who  married  Jezebel, 
daughter  of  the  king  of  Tyre,  and  built  a 
temple  to  the  Tyrian  Baal  in  the  city  of 
Samaria.  The  common  liberal  attitude  in 
this  regard  is  also  illustrated  by  Amaziah, 
who  sent  from  Samaria  to  inquire  before 
Baal-Zebub,  the  god  of  the  city  of  Ekron.^ 
In  view  of  such  instances,  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  the  surviving  cities  of  old  Canaan 
acted  as  points  from  which  the  Baal-cults 
were  spread  throughout  all  the  cities  of 
Israel. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that,  after  the  rise  of  David,  Baalism 
was  rigidly  confined  to  the  cities.  All  that 
our  proposition  contemplates  is  that  Baal- 
ism centered  for  a  long  time  in  the  cities, 
while,  in  contrast,  the  Yahweh-cult  had 
its  great  stronghold  in  the  rural  districts. 
This  condition  must  have  obtained  until 
the  accession  of  Jehu,  the  candidate  of  the 
rustics,  in  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century 
B.  C.  The  rise  of  this  vulgar  cavalry 
officer  on  the  floodtide  of  rustic  reaction 

'  2  Kings  I  :  2. 


THE  REVOLUTION  85 

against  the  cities  marked  a  turning-point 
in  the  social  history.  From  this  time  the 
Yahweh-cult  became  as  important  in  the 
cities  as  in  the  rural  districts.  At  the 
same  time,  the  political  significance  of  the 
free  peasantry  in  the  country  declined 
more  and  more  with  the  further  concen- 
tration of  landed  property,  which  was 
hastened  by  the  Syrian  wars.  The  revo- 
lution of  Jehu  made  Israel  as  a  whole,  city 
and  country,  more  thoroughly  than  before 
''the  land  of  Yahweh."  But  this  was 
only  a  ritual  fact.  The  social  problem 
steadily  developed  in  the  direction  already 
taken.^ 

This  further  combination  of  circum- 
stances at  length  brought  into  bold  relief 
the  forces  crudely  expressed  by  the  move- 
ment of  country  against  city.  That  move- 
ment was  the  vital  fact  in  the  first  stage 
of  Yahwism.  It  largely  succeeded  in  the 
realm  of  ritual;  but  it  failed  of  its  real 
purpose.      With    the   breakdown   of    the 

^  Dr.  G.  A.  Smith,  referring  to  the  century  after 
Jehu,  speaks  of  "  city  life  developing  at  the  expense 
of  country  life  "  (Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets  [New 
York],  Vol.  I,  p.  42). 


86  EGOISM 

farmers'  campaign,  the  religion  of  Israel 
passed  into  a  higher  and  more  spiritual 
stage.  Yahwism  versus  Baalism  came  to 
signify,  not  merely  rustic  right  against 
city  wrong,  but  good  in  general  against 
evil  in  general.  And  it  was  to  give  ex- 
pression to  this  wider  and  mightier 
struggle  within  the  social  body  that  the 
literary  prophets  arose. 

We  are,  then,  to  regard  the  farmers' 
movement  as  one  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
Yahwism.  Although  it  involved  a  nar- 
row moral  protest,  its  ritual  character  is 
suggested  by  the  deuteronomic  proposi- 
tion that  if  Israel  worshiped  Yahweh,  all 
kinds  of  material  good  would  be  showered 
upon  the  people;  wiiereas,  if  they  served 
other  gods,  corresponding  evil  would  be 
sent  upon  them.  This  materialistic  way 
of  looking  at  the  situation  was  a  necessary 
historical  step.  The  deuteronomic  propo- 
sition found  sufficient  proof  in  the  now 
full-fledged  tradition  that  Yahweh  had 
given  Israel  the  entire  Holy  Land  at  a 
single  stroke.  It  is  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  those  who,  in  the  time  of  Jeremiah,  said 


THE  REVOLUTION  87 

in  substance :  "  We  burned  incense  to  the 
queen  of  heaven,  and  had  good  things; 
but  since  we  ceased  burning  incense  to 
her,  we  have  had  evil."^  That  the  rus- 
tic reaction  partook  mostly  of  this  com- 
mon materiahstic  character  there  can  be 
httle  doubt.  In  no  other  way  could  there 
have  been  developed  that  ritual  ''  zeal " 
(whereof  Jehu  boasted)  which  was  a 
necessary  condition  of  the  further  build- 
ing up  of  Israel's  religion.  The  rural- 
urban  struggle  furnished  the  symbols  — 
Yahwism  versus  Baalism  —  under  which, 
with  a  different  emphasis,  the  succeeding 
phase  of  the  religious  process  found  ex- 
pression. Into  these  symbols,  as  we  shall 
now  see,  the  prophets  who  worked  be- 
tween the  revolution  and  the  exile  read  a 
pro  founder  moral  meaning  than  Elijah 
possibly  could  have  conceived. 

^Jer.  44:  17,   18. 


XIII 
THE  WRITING  PROPHETS 

The  revolution  of  Jehu  brought  no  re- 
Hef  to  the  farmers,  and  spent  itself  in  the 
realm  of  Israel's  religious  conceptions. 
For  further  development  of  doctrine  we 
are  thrown  upon  later  history.  The  ear- 
lier parts  of  the  books  of  Amos,  Hosea, 
Micah,  and  Isaiah  date  from  the  century 
after  Jehu.  In  these  writings  we  find  that 
the  problem  already  outlined  is  taking  on 
the  chronic  form  which  has  been  charac- 
teristic of  the  Orient  for  many  centuries. 

The  fact  that  the  Yahweh  movement  is 
originally  based  on  the  reaction  of  country 
against  city  comes  out  over  and  over  again 
in  the  works  of  the  literary  prophets.  We 
have  seen  that  Elijah,  the  first  great  man 
connected  with  this  movement,  came  from 
the  Gilead  region,  where  life  remained 
primitive  down  to  a  late  period ;  and  that 
his  successor  Elisha  was  called  to  the 
prophetic   office    from    the   plow-handles. 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  89 

The  earlier  of  the  literary  prophets  were 
likewise  men  from  outside  the  cities. 

Amos  was  a  herdsman  and  a  dresser  of 
sycamore  trees. ^  Going  to  the  city  of 
Bethel,  he  preached  against  the  sins  of  the 
people.^  It  is  the  rich  women  of  the  city 
of  Samaria  —  "the  kine  of  Bashan,"  as 
he  calls  them  —  who  uphold  their  hus- 
bands in  crushing  the  poor  and  oppressing 
the  needy.^  It  is  in  the  cities  Bethel  and 
Gilgal  that  Israel  transgresses  and  multi- 
plies transgressions.'*  It  is  from  these 
and  other  cities  that  Israel  is  warned.^ 
Yahweh  will  deliver  up  the  city  and  all 
that  is  therein.^  It  is  no  wonder  that 
Amaziah  the  priest  cried  to  Amos,  and 
said,  "Preach  not  any  more  at  Bethel."^ 

A  contemporary  prophet,  Hosea,  plainly 
shows  aversion  to  the  city  and  love  for 
the  country :  He  applies  the  word  "  Ca- 
naanite"  to  the  city  merchants,  or 
traffickers.  This  contracted  usage  is  all 
that  remains  to  a  word  which  once  indi- 

^  Amos   1:1;  7:14. 

^  Amos  7:10.  '  Amos  5  :  4  f . 

*  Amos  4:1.  ^  Amos  6  :  8. 

*  Amos  4:4.  '  Amos  7:12. 


90  EGOISM 

cated  the  entire  land.  The  cities  of  Ca- 
naan, we  remember,  were  not  conquered 
by  the  tribes  of  Israel ;  and  after  city  and 
country  had  fused  into  a  single  state,  the 
word  remained  in  popular  speech  in  the 
sense  just  noted.  "As  for  the  Canaanite," 
says  Hosea,  "  the  balances  of  deceit  are  in 
his  hand.  He  loveth  to  defraud.  And 
Ephraim  [northern  Israel]  said,  Surely  I 
am  become  rich.  I  have  found  me 
wealth."  The  antithesis  of  this  reproach- 
ful reference  to  the  wealth  of  the  cities 
brings  out  clearly  the  sympathies  of 
Hosea,  for,  continuing,  he  puts  these 
words  in  the  mouth  of  Yahweh  :  ''  I  will 
yet  again  make  thee  to  dwell  in  tents."  ^ 
The  prophet  Micah  hailed  from  an 
agricultural  village  in  the  Shephelah, 
w^here,  as  Professor  G.  A.  Smith  observes, 
'*  there  are  none  of  the  conditions  or  of 
the  occasions  of  a  large  town."  ^  "  The 
voice  of  Yahweh,"  says  Micah,   *'crieth 

'  Hos.   12:7,  8,  9;    cf.  Harper,  Amos  and  Hosea 
(New  York,  1905),  pp.  384-88. 

"  G.    A.    Smith,    Book    of    the    Twelve    Prophets 
(New  York),  Vol.  I,  p.  377- 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  91 

unto  the  city."^^  ''I  will  cut  off  the 
cities  of  thy  land."^^  According  to  this 
prophet,  the  sins  of  the  people  are  sym- 
bolized by  Samaria  and  Jerusalem,  the 
capital  cities  of  north  and  south.^^  Micah 
looks  forward  to  a  golden  age  of  rustic 
happiness,  when  "  they  shall  sit  every  man 
under  his  vine  and  under  his  fig  tree."^^ 
The  message  of  the  prophets,  then,  was 
formulated  in  the  rural  districts.  But  at 
last,  in  the  person  of  Isaiah,  the  Yahweh 
party  entered  the  cities.  As  he  appears 
in  his  writings,  Isaiah  belongs  tO'  the  city. 
His  great  successor,  Jeremiah,  the  last  of 
the  pre-exilic  prophets,  was  likewise  an 
inhabitant  of  Jerusalem  during  his  public 
career;  but  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
he  was  born  in  the  country  village  of 
Anathoth,  where  lay  the  lands  of  his 
family.i^ 

^°  Mic.  6:9.  "  Mic.  5:11.  ^^  Mic.   i  :  5. 

"  Mic.  4  :4  ;  cf.  Zeph.  3:1;  1:16,"  Woe  to  the 
oppressing  city  !  The  Day  of  Yahweh  is  a  day  of 
alarm  against  the  fortified  cities  and  high  battle- 
ments." 

"  Jer.  1:1;  32:  6  f.  Like  Amos  of  rustic  Tekoa, 
going  to  Bethel  to  preach  against  the  sins  of  the 
city,  so  Jeremiah  from  rural  Anathoth  feels  im- 
pelled to  preach  against  the  sins  of  the  city  of 
Jerusalem:    Jer.  2:  i. 


92  EGOISM 

The  works  of  the  hterary  prophets  of 
this  period  are  of  immense  interest  and 
importance.  In  them  we  trace,  practically 
at  first  hand,  many  of  the  great  formative 
influences  that  contributed  to  the  develoi> 
ment  of  the  Old  Testament  religion  in  its 
final  form.  It  is  true  that  these  writings 
bear  the  marks  of  jx)st-exilic  editing;  but 
they  are  not  so  extensively  done  over  and 
systematized  as  the  pentateuchal  books 
and  the  historical  narrative  in  Judges- 
Kings.  When  we  read  the  works  going 
under  the  names  of  Amos,  Hosea,  ]\Iicah, 
Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  we  are  in  contact 
with  material  that  took  form  before  the 
Pentateuch  in  its  present  shape  was  heard 
of,  and  before  the  narrative  in  Judges- 
Kings  had  become  a  part  of  sacred  litera- 
ture. There  was  no  Bible  in  the  days  of 
these  prophets.  The  only  "word  of 
Elohim  "  which  they  knew  was  the  "  tora 
of  Yahweh,"  the  living  word,  which  was 
uttered  by  themselves  and  other  holy  men 
who  were  thought  to  be  in  some  sense 
mouthpieces,  or  preachers,  for  the  Divine 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  93 

Majesty.^ ^  In  their  day  there  was  no 
Pentateuch,  with  its  detailed  laws,  minute 
directions,  and  striking  predictions.  The 
prophets  were  always  looking  for  strong 
points  of  appeal  in  their  preaching  to  Is- 
rael ;  and  if  such  a  work  had  existed,  it  is 
inconceivable  that  these  preachers,  the 
spokesmen  of  that  Yahweh  who  did 
nothing  "without  revealing  his  secret  unto 
his  servants  the  prophets,"  ^^  should  not 
have  known  of  it  and  constantly  appealed 
to  it.  We  refer  to  this  cardinal  position 
of  modern  biblical  criticism,  not  to  argue 
for  it,  but  in  order  to  bring  into  the  pres- 
ent study  something  of  the  atmosphere  in 
which  men  like  Amos  and  Isaiah  lived 
and  worked.^  ^ 

^^Cf.  W.  R.  Smith,  The  Old  Testament  in  the 
Jewish  Church  (New  York,  1891),  pp.  292  f, 

^®  Amos  3  :  7. 

"  We  do  not  deny  that  many,  perhaps  most,  of 
the  laws,  customs,  and  traditions  now  in  the  Penta- 
teuch were  already  in  the  life  of  Israel,  Nor  do  we 
deny  that  the  historical  materials  lying-  at  the  basis 
of  the  Judges-Kings  narrative  were  in  existence  in 
some  form  before  the  exile.  In  fact,  these  histories 
profess  to  be  based  on  earlier  written  sources,  which 
are  often  specified.  We  simply  stand  on  the  critical 
proposition   which   affirms   that   these   laws,   customs, 


94  EGOISM 

The  writings  of  the  prophets  are  not 
systematic  productions.  They  seem  at 
first  glance  to  be  mere  waste-basket  col- 
lections. But  careful  study  shows  that,  in 
spite  of  their  superficial  disorder,  they  are 
bound  into  organic  unity  by  certain  gen- 
eral ideas  to  which  they  give  nervous  and 
oftentimes  broken  utterance. 

Like  Elijah,  the  literary  prophets  were 
united  in  demanding  faithfulness  to  Yah- 
weh.  But  in  the  times  of  these  men  the 
preaching  of  Elijah  and  the  resulting 
revolution  of  Jehu  lay  far  enough  in  the 
past  for  them  to  see  that  mere  physical 
faithfulness  to  Yahweh  was  of  no  avail  as 
a  remedy  for  Israel's  troubles.  Although 
the  bloody  revolution  of  Jehu  counted 
thus  for  nothing  practical,  it  was  of  un- 
speakable importance  in  the  development 
of  religion.  It  drove  the  Yahweh  people 
into  clearer  expression  of  their  views.  It 
made  them  "show  their  hand,"  so  to 
speak.  The  real  purpose  of  the  country 
party  in  the  campaign  of  Elijah  and  Eli- 
traditions,  myths,  and  histories  were  not  worked  up 
into  an  authoritative  sacred  literature  until  after  the 
exile. 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  95 

sha,  and  the  revolution  of  Jehu,  was  not 
disinterested  "  zeal "  for  Yahweh,  but  ex- 
tremely interested  zeal  for  themselves. 
We  have  already  pointed  out  that  there  is 
not,  and  cannot  be,  such  a  thing  as  dis- 
interestedness in  the  popular  understand- 
ing of  the  term.  There  must  be  a  funda- 
mental element  of  egoism  within  or  behind 
that  which  we  call  by  other  names.  Our 
historical  study  thus  far  is  enough  to 
show  the  egoistic  purpose  lying  behind 
the  reaction  of  the  country  against  the  city 
in  Canaanitish-Israel ;  and  the  literary 
prophets  bring  that  purpose  into  bold  re- 
lief. 

As  a  result  of  the  movement  culminat- 
ing in  the  revolution  of  the  ninth  century, 
Israel  now  paid  more  attentive  service  to 
Yahweh  than  at  any  earlier  period.  So 
far  as  mere  physical  faithfulness  to  the 
national  god  was  concerned,  the  rustic 
party  was  thus  in  a  large  degree  success- 
ful. So  much  was  this  true  that  the 
prophets  of  the  eighth  and  subsequent 
centuries  found  it  necessary  to  bear  less 
and  less  on  the  issue  between  Yahweh  and 


96  EGOISM 

other  gods,  and  to  emphasize  more  and 
more  the  issue  between  right  and  wrong 
ways  of  serving  Yahweh  himself.  It  w^as 
not  ritual  faithfulness  to  him  that  was 
alone  demanded,  however  important  that 
might  be  in  itself.  To  the  prophets  it  be- 
comes foolishness  that  Israel  should  look 
to  ritual  measures  for  help  in  trouble. 
Jeremiah  tells  the  people  that  it  avails 
nothing  if  they  have  the  temple  of  Yah- 
weh, and  do  not  execute  justice  between 
man  and  man.^^  Amos  declares  Yah- 
weh's  hatred  of  their  feasts,  their  solemn 
assemblies,  and  their  sacrifices,  coupling 
this  with  a  demand  for  justice  and  right- 
eousness.^^ Physical  faithfulness  to  Yah- 
weh, and  casting  out  of  other  gods  was 
useless  if  men  continued  to  do  evil  to  each 
other.  Men  themselves  must  be  righteous. 
The  work  of  the  prophets,  in  brief,  was  to 
unite  the  ideas  of  Yahweh-worship  and 
personal  righteousness.  They  practically 
identified  ethics  and  religion.  In  their 
teaching,  conduct  overshadowed  cult. 
There   is   no   dark   mystery  about   the 

'"  Jer.  7:4,  5.  '"  Amos  5:21  f. 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  97 

prophetic  association  of  righteousness  with 
the  Yahweh-cult.  The  god  of  Israel  was 
a  covenant  god,  who,  unHke  the  nature- 
gods,  had  chosen  his  people,  and  done 
them  good,  raising  them  up  from  nothing 
to  royal  estate  under  David  and  Solomon. 
Whoever,  therefore,  did  evil  to  Israel  was 
plainly  working  in  flat  opposition  to  the 
national  god.  The  bad  man,  according  to 
the  prophets,  was  destroying  **  the  inheri- 
tance of  Yahweh."  He  was  tearing  down 
what  the  good  Yahweh  had  built  up.  The 
covenant  Elohim  of  Israel  was  good  in  the 
very  depths  of  his  nature;  and  his  prim- 
ary demand  upon  his  people  was  that  they 
be  good  also.^*^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  moral  impera- 
tive—  the  demand  for  goodness  on  the 
part  of  others  —  is  a  universal  fact.  We 
find  it  in  all  societies  at  all  periods  of  his- 
tory. We  are,  therefore,  assured  at  the 
outset  that  the  prophets  of  Israel  had  no 
patent  on  the  cry  for  righteousness.  It 
surrounded    them    like    the    atmosphere. 

^'^  The  Hebrew  term  rendered  "  lovingkindness  " 
{hcsed,  "Cn)  comes  within  this  general  concep- 
tion ;    but  we  have  not  space  to  enlarge  upon  it  here. 


98  EGOISM 

The  simple  fact  is  that  Israel  was  in  a 
situation  that  lent  itself  historically  to  this 
universal  demand  upon  the  others  for 
good.  Every  man,  at  one  time  or  another, 
has  a  case  against  somebody ;  most  people 
have  chronic  cases  against  the  world ;  and 
here,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  a  large 
number  of  men  were  able  to  make  a  plaus- 
ible claim  that  God  (Elohim)  was  on  their 
side  in  their  case  against  the  others.  The 
prophetic  movement  gave  expression  to 
this  demand.  In  Israel  we  must  recognize 
the  universal  as  taking  on  a  particular 
form  which  has  commended  itself  to 
future  ages. 

The  monotheism  of  the  prophets, 
equally  with  their  ethics,  is  based  on 
conditions  plain  enough  when  once  per- 
ceived. From  Amos  onward,  Yahweh  is 
presented,  not  as  the  only  existing  god, 
but  as  the  Supreme  One,  the  Lord  of 
lords  and  God  of  gods.  We  have  already 
observed  the  social  and  political  circum- 
stances, in  the  earlier  history  of  Israel, 
which  lay  behind  the  "  increase  of  Yah- 
weh."    The  literary  prophets  put  further 


THE  WRITING  PROPHETS  99 

touches  upon  the  conception.  Their  the- 
ology, however,  was  plainly  incidental, 
and  subordinate,  to  their  social  preaching. 
They  made  use  of  Yahweh  as  a  magnet 
wherewith  to  draw  the  people  into  con- 
duct which  they  thought  would  solve  the 
social  problem;  and  it  was  but  natural, 
under  such  conditions,  that  they  should 
present  the  god  of  Israel  in  the  most  allur- 
ing and  powerful  character  possible.  In 
so  doing,  they  unconsciously  strained  to 
the  uttermost  the  conception  of  Yahweh 
as  god  of  heaven  and  earth. 

The  hope  of  Israel,  as  developed  in  the 
later  prophets,  anticipated  a  final  Utopia. 
The  glories  of  the  united  kingdom  of 
David  and  Solomon  were  to  return  with 
added  glory;  and  the  people  were  to  live 
under  a  king  who  was  the  Anointed  of 
Yahweh  —  the  Messiah.  The  so-called 
"messianic  hope"  looked  forward  to  a 
political  king  reigning  over  a  kingdom  of 
rightness. 


XIV 
THE  EXILE  AND  AFTER 

The  prophets  had  been  preaching  more 
than  a  century  when  the  principal  inhabi- 
tants of  the  northern  kingdom  were  car- 
ried away  into  a  captivity  from  which 
they  never  returned  (722  B.  C).  Judah, 
the  southern  kingdom,  was  now  left  as 
the  sole  representative  of  Israel.  But  in 
the  early  part  of  the  sixth  century  the 
principal  inhabitants  of  Judah  were  car- 
ried into  the  famous  Babylonian  exile. 
The  troubles  of  Israel  had  now  culmin- 
ated in  utter  loss  of  national  existence. 
Thus  the  prophets  were  finally  justified  in 
their  claim  that  worship  of  other  gods  be- 
side Yahweh  brought  evil. 

After  an  enforced  absence  of  about  fifty 
years,  many  of  the  exiled  Judeans  and 
their  children  were  permitted  to  return. 
In  dependence  upon  the  sovereignty  of 
Persia,  Israel  was  reconstituted  under  the 


THE  EXILE  AND  AFTER  loi 

form  of  the  Jewish  state,  with  its  capital 
at  Jerusalem. 

From  the  standpoint  of  cult,  the  net 
effect  of  the  exile  was  to  fasten  Yahwism 
upon  Israel  more  firmly  than  ever.  If  we 
look  at  the  facts  from  the  cult  standpoint 
alone,  the  prophetic  movement  was  a 
great  success;  for  in  all  the  world  there 
have  never  been  more  fanatical  devotees 
than  the  post-exilic  Judeans.  A  beginning 
in  this  direction  was  made  by  the  revolu- 
tion of  Jehu,  wherein  foreign  gods  were 
cast  out.  Other  pre-exilic  spasms  of  re- 
form carried  the  purification  further. 
Finally  the  exile  itself  completed  the  pro- 
cess :  Israel  flung  all  other  worships  "  to 
the  moles  and  to  the  bats."  A  faithful- 
ness to  Yahweh  which  included  abhor- 
rence of  all  other  gods  became  the  sign  of 
Jewish  integrity.  This  was  not  senti- 
ment.   It  was  a  practical  proposition. 

But  although  the  prophetic  movement 
was  at  length  successful  in  the  realm  of 
cult,  it  failed  of  any  large  issue  in  reform- 
ing the  Hfe  of  the  people;  for  the  social 
problem  after  the  exile  was  the  same  as 


102  EGOISM 

before.  Landed  property  concentrated  in 
the  hands  of  a  small  wealthy  class,  under 
which  the  masses  lived  in  economic  de- 
pendence. 

The  religious  conceptions  of  Israel  after 
the  exile  were  undoubtedly  an  advance 
upon  religious  conceptions  before  that 
period.  Pre-exilic  religion  was  a  practical 
polytheism.  But  the  official  religion  of 
post-exilic  Israel  was  a  practical  mono- 
theism. 

The  religion  of  Israel,  as  finally  estab- 
lished after  the  exile,  while  in  advance  of 
pre-exilic  ideas  and  practices,  was  incom- 
plete. A  few  mountain-top  souls,  like 
Jeremiah,  transcended  its  limitations;  but 
at  the  most  it  offered  only  the  raw- 
material  of  a  universal  faith.  On  the 
whole,  the  religion  of  the  Old  Covenant, 
in  spite  of  its  implicit  outreach  to  some- 
thing nobler,  was  a  religion  of  direct  ego- 
ism. A  New  Covenant,  or  Testament,  in- 
volving the  general  principle  of  altruism, 
was  necessary  to  complete  the  process  be- 
gun under  the  older  system. 


XV 
JESUS  OF  NAZARETH 

The  expansion  of  Israel's  faith  into  a 
form  fit  for  the  world  at  large  was  ac- 
complished in  the  experience  of  Jesus,  the 
prophet  of  Nazareth.  The  central  fact  in 
the  experience  of  Jesus  was  his  new  con- 
sciousness of  the  Divine  Majesty.  He 
boldly  declares  that  before  his  time  the 
world  has  not  known  God.  "  Father,  the 
world  knew  thee  not;  but  I  knew  thee. 
No  one  knoweth  the  Father  but  the  Son. 
No  one  knoweth  who  the  Father  is  save 
the  Son."  ^  This  is  the  vastest  and  most 
daring  proposition  ever  laid  down  by  a 
religious  teacher.  Jesus  was  plainly 
aware  that  his  consciousness  of  the  Divine 
w^as  new  to  men.  Yet  to  him  it  was  an 
expression  of  an  ancient  fact. 

The  solution  of  this  paradox  of  a  new- 
old  God  is  to  be  found  in  the  domain  of 

^John  17:25;  Matt.  11:27;  Luke  10:22;  cf. 
John  7  :  28,  29  ;    15:21. 

103 


104  EGOISM 

sociology.  The  great  historical  period  ly- 
ing between  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
was  required  to  produce  the  psychology 
of  Jesus. 

In  the  early  stages  of  social  evolution  it 
is  the  heads  of  families,  the  leaders  of  the 
'^  fathers'  houses,"  who  alone  constitute 
the  legal  element  of  the  community.  The 
supremacy  of  fatherhood  is  a  universal 
fact  in  primitive  society.  It  was  the 
fathers  in  the  early  days  that  were  the 
chief  warriors  and  defenders  of  the 
people.  Since  the  gods  were  developed, 
along  the  lines  of  ancestor-worship,  from 
dead  chiefs  and  leaders,  it  is  not  remark- 
able that  they  should  be  represented  as 
partaking  of  the  general  character  of 
early  chiefs.  The  ancient  gods  were  thus 
primarily  war-gods.  Yahweh  was  a  god 
of  barbarian  tribes  which  attacked  and 
occupied  the  lands  of  other  people,  and 
which  were  in  turn  compelled  to  defend 
themselves  against  repeated  invasion.  It 
was  Yahweh  who  led  the  people  in  these 
wars.  Their  battles  are  called  ''the 
battles  of  Yahweh."     And  Yahweh  him- 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  105 

self  is  called  "  a  man  of  war."  A  common 
title  given  to  him  is  that  of  "  god  of  hosts, 
mighty  in  battle."  As  a  general  proposi- 
tion, Old  Testament  theology  was  a  re- 
flection of  Old  Testament  sociology. 

But  in  the  time  between  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  the  evolution  of  society 
passed  through  important  stages.  A 
great  industrial  and  commercial  class 
arose.  This  class  —  the  plebeians  — 
fought  for  political  rights,  and  at  length 
secured  a  voice  in  the  government  along- 
side the  old  family  nobility.  Rome  led 
the  way  in  this ;  but  the  development  was 
general.  The  earlier  system  of  govern- 
ment, founded  on  the  fathers'  houses, 
gave  way  to  a  system  founded  on  prop- 
erty, regardless  of  descent.  Govern- 
mental activities  and  political  rights, 
although  open  to  fathers,  no  longer  per- 
tained to  them  in  their  paternal  character. 
A  citizen  under  the  new  order  of  things 
did  not  necessarily  belong  to  an  ancient 
noble  family.  Crowded  out  of  the  polit- 
ical sphere,  fatherhood,  no  longer  asso- 
ciated  with  war,   grew   more  industrial. 


io6  EGOISM 

peaceable,  and  lovable.  This  far-reaching 
social  change  was  first  realized  in  the 
civilizations  of  Greece  and  Rome;  and 
the  influence  and  rule  of  these  countries 
at  length  extended  all  around  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Israel  was  drawn  into  a  new 
world.  The  growth  of  commerce  and  in- 
dustry found  expression  in  the  rise  of  new 
cities  and  the  growth  of  old  ones. 
"  Nothing  strikes  the  student  more  for- 
cibly than  the  number  of  new  cities 
that  now  come  to  the  front.  The  old 
towns  when  conquered  or  surrendered  are 
rebuilt  and  reorganized.  By  their  side 
many  new  ones  spring  into  existence. 
The  kings  are  pre-eminently  patrons  of 
these  cities.  Alexander  himself  is  said 
to  have  founded  more  than  sixty  in  his 
brief  career.  The  number  founded  by  his 
successors  rises  into  the  hundreds.  In 
Palestine,  as  elsewhere,  old  and  new  cities 
received  the  Greek  organization."^ 

Jesus  grew  up  in  an  artisan  family  in 
the  city  of  Nazareth,  an  important  indus- 

='H.    p.    Smith,    Old    Testament    History    (New 
York,  1903),  p.  417. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  107 

trial  center.  The  father  was  a  carpenter; 
and  the  son  followed  the  paternal  business 
until  about  the  age  of  thirty.  It  is  in- 
structive to  note  that,  while  the  Old 
Testament  religion  was  largely  developed 
in  the  country,  the  New  Testament  reli- 
gion evolved  in  the  city.  Although  in 
Jesus  the  terms  of  religion  were  at  length 
liberated  from  dependence  upon  any  one 
element  of  society,  the  standpoint  of  early 
Christianity  was  distinctly  urban.  Not 
only  was  Jesus  a  city  man,  but  the  dis- 
ciple through  whose  labors  the  new  faith 
was  spread  abroad  in  the  world  was  Paul 
of  Tarsus,  "no  mean  city."^  The  dis- 
ciples were  first  called  Christians  in  the 
city  of  Antioch.^  The  epistles  of  Paul  are 
directed  mostly  to  city  churches  in  such 
industrial  and  commercial  centers  as 
Corinth  and  Rome.  One  of  our  principal 
terms  for  non-Christian  religions  is  de- 
rived from  the  Latin  noun  pagtis,  mean- 
ing the  country  districts.  The  religions 
in  the  Roman  Empire  which  were  opposed 
to  Christianity  are  known  collectively  as 

^  Acts  21  :  39.  *  Acts  1 1  :  26. 


io8  EGOISM 

''paganism,"  the  religion  of  the  rural 
classes.  The  implication  of  this  term  is 
that  Christianity  was  early  identified  with 
city  rather  than  with  country. 

The  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus 
was  an  outgrowth  of  social  evolution 
working  upon  the  conceptions  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Studying  the  sacred  books  of 
his  people,  he  found  the  God  of  Israel  de- 
scribed, on  the  one  hand,  as  a  father,  and, 
on  the  other,  as  ruler  of  heaven  and  earth. 
Jesus  read  back  into  the  word  "  father," 
which  had  been  applied  to  Yahweh  in  the 
days  of  old,  all  the  wealth  of  meaning 
with  which  the  subsequent  evolution  of 
society  had  invested  this  term.  If  Yah- 
weh were  both  Father  and  God  of  all,  as 
the  prophets  affirmed,  then  he  must  be 
everything  that  was  nozi'  implied  in  the 
ideal  of  fatherhood;  he  must  be  the  Pa- 
ternal Superlative,  the  loving  Father  of 
every  man,  regardless  of  nationality  or 
station  in  life.  This  was  a  simple  step  to 
take;  yet  nobody  had  really  taken  it  be- 
fore the  time  of  Jesus  in  the  whole- 
hearted way  that  he  took  it.     By  giving 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  109 

himself  to  thoughts  of  God  in  this  char- 
acter, and  by  spending  long  hours  alone  in 
fasting  and  prayer,  he  developed  a  new 
standard  of  religious  life.  From  the  out- 
look thus  acquired,  he  calmly  announced 
that  the  world  had  not  hitherto  known 
the  Divine,  and  that  his  own  experience 
(i.  e ,  an  experience  like  his)  must  hence- 
forth be  the  way  in  which  God  and  man 
should  associate.^ 

Jesus  plainly  realized  that  no  one  had 
ever  laid  hold  upon  the  Divine  as  he  did ; 
but,  since  there  was  no  science  of  his- 
torical sociology  in  his  day,  he  was  unable 
to  explain  this  fact,  and  probably  he  did 
not  even  speculate  about  it.  In  both  the 
synoptic  and  the  Johannine  accounts,  dif- 
ferent as  they  are,  Jesus  appears  as  one  in 

^  The  affirmation,  "  No  man  cometh  unto  the 
Father  but  by  me,"  should  be  read  in  the  light  of  the 
symbolism  which  Jesus  himself,  or  the  writer  of 
John  (it  makes  no  difference  which),  employs  in  the 
preceding  sentence,  i.  e.,  "  I  am  the  Way,"  etc. 
When  Jesus  declares,  "  I  am  the  Way,"  he  can  only 
be  speaking  in  the  figure,"  My  life  —  my  attitude  — 
is  the  Way."  Therefore,  when  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"  No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me,"  he 
means  that  we  cannot  fellowship  with  the  Divine 
(nor  with  each  other,  for  that  matter)  save  by  the 
way  which  his  experience  illustrates. 


no  EGOISM 

whom  the  sense  of  history  is  lost  in  a 
deeper  sense  of  the  immediate  reaHty 
whereof  historical  phenomena  are  but  a 
passing  manifestation. 

The  new  doctrine  of  divinity  involved 
in  its  very  essence  a  new  doctrine  of  hu- 
manity. Jesus  could  not  have  his  con- 
sciousness of  God  without  having  a  corre- 
lative consciousness  of  man.  The  uni- 
versal divine  fatherhood  implied  a  uni- 
versal human  brotherhood.  If  God  were 
the  loving  Father  of  all,  then  all  men  were 
neighbors  and  brothers,  regardless  of  race 
or  nationality.^ 

At  a  time  when  such  conceptions  had 
never  been  seriously  entertained,  Jesus 
both  preached  and  practiced  them  in  a 
way  that  touched  men  more  profoundly 
than  any  other  appeal  in  all  history.     He 

'  We  are  not,  of  course,  attempting  in  this  limited 
space  a  rounded  philosophy  of  Jesus.  Yet  the  pres- 
ent interpretation  is  written  in  a  spirit  of  protest 
against  any  view  which  sets  up  an  antithesis  between 
Jesus  and  the  rest  of  humanity  by  postulating  in 
him  an  element  of  mystery  which  is  not  common  to 
us  all.  This  matter  is  discussed  a  little  more  fully 
in  the  writer's  Examination  of  Society,  pp.  206-20  ; 
and  it  will  be  exclusively  treated  in  the  volume  al- 
ready announced  under  the  title  The  Psychology  of 
the  Prophets. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  in 

taught  that  men  must  Hud  themselves  by 
losing  themselves  in  the  mutual  service  of 
a  society  consisting  of  God  and  men.  In 
him  the  ethical  protest  of  the  older 
prophets  was  wholly  freed  from  its  de- 
pendence upon  local  conditions.  In  him 
the  moral  imperative  was  expressed  in 
universal  terms. 

Jesus  regarded  himself  as  the  true  ful- 
filment of  the  older  prophecy,  the  Mes- 
siah, the  Anointed  One;  the  king  who 
should  rule  in  righteousness;  the  moral 
and  spiritual,  rather  than  the  material, 
completion  of  his  people's  hope. 


XVI 
THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE 

Granting  these  propositions,  the  ulti- 
mate question  is :  What  is  the  practical 
issue?  What  good  are  they  for  us,  here 
and  now?  This  is  not  an  illegitimate  in- 
quiry. It  is  eminently  proper.  Coming 
up,  as  it  must,  in  the  mind  of  everybody 
who  w^ill  read  this  essay,  it  supplies  inci- 
dental proof  of  the  egoistic  proposition. 
We  formulate  the  practical  issue  of  the 
study  as  follows : 

As  we  have  already  emphasized,  the 
reaction  between  self  and  other  is  pri- 
marily individualistic.  Whatever  be  the 
evil  encountered  in  society,  it  is  thus 
cavalierly  ascribed  to  this  or  that  other. 
The  bad  situation  is  charged  up  to  the  bad 
will  of  some  individual  or  individuals. 
And  the  remedy  is  lightly  assumed  to  lie 
always  in  the  reformation  of  people  as 
individuals.  The  reaction  between  self 
and  other  is  largely  conditioned  by  what 


THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE  113 

may  be  called  "negative  perception." 
When  this  condition  exists,  we  perceive 
that  a  certain  thing  is  done  by  the  other, 
but  we  fail  to  grasp  the  entire  situation  in 
which  the  other  stands.  In  such  cases  our 
perceptions  are  virtually  reports  contain- 
ing unanalyzed  material.  Hence  the  dia- 
lectic of  the  reaction  between  self  and 
other  is  often  invalid.  There  will  always 
be  a  place  for  individualism;  but  it  does 
not  have  the  place  widely  assigned  it  on 
the  basis  of  common  perceptions ;  and  the 
progress  of  thought  must  readjust  it 
within  a  broader  and  truer  perspective. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  the  problem  be- 
fore society  is  primarily  psychological.  A 
change  of  attitude  with  reference  to  the 
whole  social  question,  past  and  present,  is 
imperatively  demanded.  The  solution  of 
social  problems  in  the  future  —  so  far  as 
their  settlement  is  possible  —  waits  upon 
enlarging  insight  into  the  total  human 
process. 

The  church  has  undoubtedly  been  the 
most  popular  moral  institution  of  all  his- 
tory;   and  for  this  reason  discussion  of 


114  EGOISM 

the  social  problem  can  be  made  to  center 
more  effectively  ajjout  the  church  than 
around  any  other  social  fact.  It  is  in  the 
world's  predisposition  to  a  purely  indi- 
vidual morality  that  we  find  the  secret  of 
the  popularity  of  the  ethics  of  the  church. 
The  ethical  attitude  of  the  church  gathers 
up  the  moral  notions  of  men,  and  reflects 
these  notions  back  on  the  social  mass.  It 
is  not  the  church  that  has  planted  the  ideas 
of  good  and  evil  in  society.  It  is  society 
that  has  produced  the  church.  Religious 
institutions  manifest  and  express  one 
phase  of  the  life  of  associated  men.  It 
needs  to  be  iterated  and  reiterated  that 
the  ethics  of  the  church  are  not  peculiar 
to  it.  The  church,  as  a  moral  institution, 
mostly  takes  up,  and  gives  official  stand- 
ing to,  the  universal  secular  reaction  of 
the  self  against  the  others. 

The  historical  assumption  of  the 
church,  tacit  or  avowed,  has  been  that  the 
world's  evil  (aside  from  purely  physical 
evil)  arises  out  of  individual  bad  will. 
The  development  of  both  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  churches  has  been  attended,  on 


THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE  115 

the  moral  side,  with  protest  merely 
against  individual  sins.  The  church  has 
never  committed  itself  to  any  proposition 
recognizing  the  organic  nature  of  society. 
It  has  proclaimed,  in  effect :  "  Society  is 
a  mere  crowd.  If  the  crowd  is  to  be  set 
right,  its  units  must  be  set  right  indi- 
vidually. Let  every  citizen  become  a 
better  citizen  and  a  better  man ;  and  then 
the  crowd,  society,  the  world,  will  be  all 
right."  In  effect,  the  church  occupies  the 
position  of  one  who  insists  that  for  the 
operating  of  a  steam-engine  all  we  need  is 
individual  righteousness  and  brotherly 
love.  By  concentrating  attention  upon 
individualism,  and  emphasizing  this  to  the 
exclusion  of  other  standpoints,  the  church 
has  practically  thrown  the  weight  of  its 
large  official  influence  in  denial  of  the 
organic  nature  of  society.  It  has  been 
innocent  of  a  sociological  outlook.  No 
counter-claim,  however  strenuous,  can 
break  the  tremendous  force  of  this  fact. 
Even  in  the  Christian  church  the  idea  of 
brotherhood,  and  of  membership  in  each 
other,  has  had  no  effect  on  the  search  for 


ii6  EGOISM 

the  grounds  of  social  problems.  The 
ethical  protest  of  the  church  —  Jewish 
and  Christian,  Catholic  and  Protestant  — 
has  in  all  ages  ignored  the  organic  nature 
of  society,  and  has  thus  helped  to  conceal 
the  fact  that  the  world's  problems  are 
partly  based  on  defects  of  the  social  sys- 
tem. 

Of  course,  the  philosophical  student  of 
society  cannot,  with  extreme  radicals,  find 
here  the  evidence  of  some  vast  conspiracy 
against  human  progress.  It  must  be  in- 
sisted that  the  ethical  attitude  of  the 
church  reflects  the  ethical  attitude  of  so- 
ciety. The  church  is  what  it  is  because 
society  is  what  it  is;  and  the  church- 
problem  is  really  the  world-problem. 
Radicals  who  imagine  the  church  to  be 
cleverly  interposing  a  bar  to  progress  are 
not  radical  enough.  They  give  the 
church  too  much  credit  for  insight.  The 
point  we  are  trying  to  make  in  this  final 
part  of  our  essay  is  that  present  official 
institutions  of  religion  must  be  freed 
from  the  conventional  individualism  in 
ethics. 


THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE  117 

Let  US  not  be  understood  as  implying 
the  futility  of  the  religious  phase  of  social 
evolution.  The  religious  process  itself 
can  be  treated  from  several  points  of 
view ;  and  our  criticism  refers  only  to  one 
aspect  of  the  process. 

Looking  back  over  the  course  of  reli- 
gious development,  a  number  of  distinct 
stages  project  themselves  into  view.  Each 
stage  was  ushered  in  by  a  revolution 
which  abolished  an  old  evil  and  secured  a 
new  good.  The  religious  process  has 
worked  out  in  logical  order,  and  could  not 
have  taken  any  other  course  than  that 
actually  followed. 

The  rise  of  the  heathen  cults  was  an 
important  and  useful  movement ;  for  they 
supplied  centers  of  social  coherence  and 
authority,  as  well  as  met  real  spiritual 
needs  in  the  domain  of  personality.  But 
the  local  cults  of  heathenism  are  not  cap- 
able of  indefinite  service;  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing stage  they  embody  positive  social 
abuses.  The  correction  of  these  evils  was 
accomplished  by  the  rise  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment religion  on  the  wreck  of  the  earlier 


ii8  EGOISM 

heathenism.  This  was,  in  effect,  a  vicari- 
ous achievement  on  behalf  of  the  world. 
The  value  of  the  Old  Testament  stage  lies 
in  the  triumph  of  the  principle  that  human 
problems  are  to  be  attacked,  not  by  burn- 
ing incense  to  Deity  in  the  hope  that  Deity 
will  set  things  right,  but  by  men  trying  to 
right  things  themselves.  It  was  inevit- 
able that  the  principle  of  self-help  should 
come  into  the  world  in  purely  individual- 
istic form,  since  there  was  no  sociology  in 
the  days  of  the  prophets.  In  the  follow- 
ing stage,  marked  by  the  appearance  of 
the  Christian  church,  the  principle  of  hu- 
man struggle  for  righteousness  is  empha- 
sized anew  from  the  standpoint  of  more 
liberal  conceptions  of  divinity  and  human- 
ity. And  in  the  next  stage  the  Protestant 
Reformation  establishes  the  right  of  pri- 
vate judgment.  If  we  live  in  a  universe 
in  which  spiritual  values  preponderate 
over  all  else,  then  this  process  (going  on 
within  the  total  social  process)  has  not 
been  futile.  It  must  have  an  eternal  sig- 
nificance, not  merely  for  present  actors, 
but  for  all  personality.     Not  only  must 


THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE  119 

earlier  ages  work  for  later  generations; 
but  posterity  must  make  achievement  for 
those  that  have  long  since  left  the  tem- 
poral stage,  "  that  apart  from  us  they 
should  not  be  made  perfect."  ^ 

All  these  beneficent  revolutions,  how- 
ever, lie  in  the  past.  The  church  now 
faces  a  condition  which,  whatever  it  may 
have  in  common  with  earlier  conditions, 
involves  practically  a  new  problem.  It 
needs  to  be  emphasized  that  the  world  of 
today  is  not  the  w^orld  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophets,  nor  of  the  New  Testament 
prophets,  nor  of  the  Protestant  reformers. 
We  are  not  living  in  the  days  of  Elijah, 
nor  Amos,  nor  Isaiah,  nor  Jesus,  nor  Paul, 
nor  Luther.  And  if  we  try  to  meet  the 
new  problems  by  falling  back  on  the  old 
formulas,  we  shall  utter  commonplaces 
that  have  no  practical  application  to  pres- 
ent difficulties. 

Again,  let  us  not  be  understood  as 
advocating  enlistment  of  the  church  in 
some  concrete  readjustment  of  the  social 
system.     The  claim  here  is  that  the  mo- 

^  Heb,  1 1  :  40. 


120  EGOISM 

mentum  of  the  religious  enterprise  in 
modern  society  goes  against  a  scientific 
interpretation  of  today's  problems;  and 
that  herein  is  involved  a  crisis  equal  in 
importance  to  any  of  the  earlier  crises  in 
social  history.  Surprising  as  it  may  ap- 
pear to  some,  the  problem  of  today's 
church  is  not  primarily  intellectual,  but 
moral.  Settlement  of  the  purely  intel- 
lectual questions  of  religious  faith  is  im- 
plicit in  resolution  of  the  moral  crisis. 
The  present  decline  in  the  influence  and 
prestige  of  official  religion  issues  from 
this  great  moral  fact. 

It  is  useless  to  try  to  dodge  this  diffi- 
culty by  claiming  that  the  church  is  con- 
cerned with  '^the  relation  between  God 
and  man,"  and  that  it  has  no  immediate 
interest  in  social  problems.  If  this  be  a 
church  theory,  it  certainly  is  not  a  church 
practice.  The  official  claim  is  that  the 
church  is  an  agency  for  ushering  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  setting  the  world 
right.  Surely,  this  is  a  very  ambitious 
object.  In  fact,  no  movement  of  social 
reform  ever  acknowledged  a  vaster  pur- 


THE  PRACTICAL  ISSUE  121 

pose.  And  yet^  on  the  whole  (we  do  not 
say  there  are  no  personal  exceptions),  the 
church  is  not  hospitable  to  reforms  based 
on  radical  analysis  of  society.  Although 
one  of  the  professed  objects  of  the  church 
is  to  set  the  world  right,  nobody  is  quicker 
than  the  ''  pillars  "  of  the  church  to  cast 
slurs  on  ''world-menders."  However 
prompt  the  church  may  be  to  take  refuge 
in  its  transcendental  functions  when  the 
social  problem  is  raised,  it  is  never  back- 
ward about  denunciation  of  individual  sin 
as  the  one  root  of  the  social  problem. 

Whether  it  is  possible  to  modify  the  di- 
rection of  attention  in  the  church  is  a 
vital  question.  We  have  not  given  this 
phase  of  the  subject  sufficient  thought  to 
venture  a  final  opinion.  It  would  be  too 
much  at  present  to  take  either  a  positive 
or  a  negative  attitude.  What  is  needed  is 
full  and  frank  discussion,  academic  and 
popular,  in  the  light  of  modern  thought 
and  knowledge. 


Date  Due 

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BS1196.4.W21 

Egoism  :  a  study  in  the  social  premises 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1012  00033  7867 


